Signs of defection among voters in their 40s and 50s deepen approval woes for Kim Min-seok's Democratic Party

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea is on high alert after a string of polls showed President Lee Jae Myung's job approval rating hitting record lows, with support sliding across all age groups — a sign that the expected post-convention bounce following the election of new party leader Kim Min-seok has failed to materialize.

A survey released Thursday by pollster Korea Information Research showed 36.5 percent of respondents giving President Lee a positive rating, while 62.0 percent rated him negatively and 1.5 percent said they did not know. The poll surveyed 1,005 adults aged 18 and older nationwide on Monday and Tuesday, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level and a response rate of 3.7 percent. The positive rating marked a drop of 6.8 percentage points from 43.3 percent recorded in the previous survey conducted Aug. 17-18, setting a new low.

The decline was most pronounced among voters in their 40s and 50s — core Democratic Party supporters. Approval among those in their 50s fell 11.5 percentage points to 39.4 percent from 50.9 percent in the prior survey. Among those in their 40s, the figure dropped 5.1 percentage points to 41.4 percent from 46.5 percent. Respondents in their 30s, where approval was already the lowest, fell 8.9 percentage points to 28.7 percent from 37.6 percent, while those aged 18 to 29 slipped 2.2 percentage points to 31.3 percent from 33.5 percent.

A separate poll showed a similar trend. A Realmeter survey of 2,026 adults aged 18 and older conducted Aug. 18-21 also recorded a new low, with positive ratings for President Lee's job performance at 40.2 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.2 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level, with a response rate of 3.2 percent. In that poll, approval among those in their 50s fell 4.7 percentage points, those in their 30s dropped 4.4 percentage points to 25.9 percent, and those in their 20s declined 2.4 percentage points to 28.6 percent compared with the previous survey. (Further details on the above polls are available on the website of the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission.)

Within and outside the party, the prevailing view is that instability in real estate prices and the stock market has weighed on the ratings. Park Seon-won, a Democratic Party supreme council member, said on SBS Radio: "Even if share prices have risen and exports have grown on paper, when individual citizens ask themselves, 'Why am I not better off?' — that is something the ruling party, President Lee and the government must take responsibility for."

Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Young-jin said in an MBC Radio interview that while macroeconomic growth had been strong on the back of the semiconductor cycle, "the jobs situation and the everyday economy that people actually live in have not been that good."

Kim also said the government had introduced single-stock leveraged ETFs "in a shortsighted and unprepared manner, dealing a massive shock to many market participants," adding that "a degree of accountability is needed."

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party plans to use the regular National Assembly session in September — including deliberations on the budget bill and tax reform proposals — as an opportunity to reverse the slide in its approval ratings. A senior party official said the party would "micro-target the execution and promotion of the massive 800 trillion won ($578 billion) budget by region and by generation."