Lee Jae-myung's Approval Rating Falls to 37.4%, Reversing After Three Weeks of Gains
President Lee Jae-myung's approval rating has fallen to 37.4%.
According to a survey conducted by Realmeter on behalf of the Energy Economy Newspaper, the president's job approval rating dropped 0.5 percentage points from 37.9% the previous week, marking the first decline in three weeks. A personnel controversy and pressing security issues have put the brakes on his upward momentum. Notably, his rating plunged more than 8 percentage points in Honam, a ruling-party stronghold, from the previous week — leading some to interpret this not as mere fluctuation but as a shaking of his political foundation.
Why the Honam Exodus Is a Warning Sign
The key finding of this survey is that more than 8 percentage points drained away from the ruling party's base support. If the pattern combined centrist gains with base defections, it could be seen as a curve typical of an early administration. But defections from a core support region are a different matter. Within the ruling camp, concerns that "the momentum for prosecutorial reform could be derailed" have surfaced openly. Rep. Shin Hyun-young of the Democratic Party recently voiced concern about weakening momentum in connection with the prosecutorial reform controversy.
The personnel issue is cited as the direct trigger of the approval decline. On the 5th, President Lee drew a line, saying, "No one should exploit prosecutorial reform out of personal ambition to control personnel decisions and even specific investigations and prosecutions." Through social media, he emphasized, "Reform must be the goal — it should never be a means of attacking someone." As internal backlash grows over the nomination of Kim Ji-yong as head of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, the president has effectively stepped in to shield the pick himself.
Opposition Attacks and the 'Prison Break' Frame
The opposition's offensive is also intensifying. Rep. Jeong Jeong-sik of the People Power Party claimed, "The president's top policy goal is erasing his own trials," arguing that "he became president to break out of prison." With debate over whether to withdraw the prosecution of President Lee's criminal trials entangled with controversy over expanding the powers of the Investigation Deliberation Committee, it has become a focal point in the legal community, and the opposition is strengthening a frame of "protecting his own trials." Prime Minister Kim Min-seok pushed back against the prosecution-withdrawal offensive, calling it a "buildup," setting the two sides on a collision course.
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk widened the front to security issues, claiming, "There must be something bigger than the cash-to-North-Korea scandal that makes President Lee so desperate toward Pyongyang." The opposition forcefully pushed back on President Lee's remarks at the 19th anniversary ceremony of the October 4 Declaration — "Ending hostility and confrontation opens the path to peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula" — raising questions about his stance on the NLL in the West Sea. With the ruling and opposition parties running on parallel tracks over whether this is "restoring the truth" or "stoking political strife," and National Assembly audits approaching, political infighting looks set to dominate the political landscape in the second half of the year.
The Dilemma of Defending Approval and Reform Speed
President Lee's response can be read along two tracks. One is proactive communication. On the 4th, he ordered "every possible measure for a thorough investigation and countermeasures" over the leak of personal data from the financial sector, and took to X to directly reassure the public on a farmland survey, saying, "Those who legally hold farmland will face no disadvantage whatsoever." This is an extension of the social media communication style he built as Seongnam mayor and Gyeonggi governor. The other is accumulating livelihood achievements. Announcing that "the second round of the youth savings program begins on the 7th and will expand to all young people starting next year," the president signaled plans to seek a breakthrough on approval ratings through livelihood issues.
Yet structural burdens remain. The 37% range is clearly lower than at the start of his term, and whether the Honam defection is a temporary backlash or a hardening trend will be a key variable going forward. The opposition is cultivating the prosecution-withdrawal issue as the biggest political controversy since the presidential election, so approval ratings are likely to fluctuate each time a legal ruling is handed down. Although ruling-party leadership is sending simultaneous messages of unity and restraint, downward pressure is expected to persist until the contentious pick for head of the Corruption Investigation Office — the very embodiment of the personnel controversy — is finalized.
In the sense that what separates political rise from decline is ultimately the public's trust, the direction of the current modest decline matters more than the drop itself. The prevailing view is that if the unity message dramatically displayed on the 4th cannot ride out the waves of law enforcement appointments and trial issues, 37% may become not a floor but a way station.
