Rep. Lee (30.2 %), Rep. Rho (17.6%) and Rep. Cheong (29.5)

With the 16th presidential election about 100 days away, a popularity vote on Sept. 7 show that Lee Hoi-chang, candidate from the Grand National Party (GNP), and Rep. Cheong Mong-jun are leading the race, and that Rho Mu-hyeon from Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) somewhat lags behind.

According to the opinion poll over the Phone conducted by the Dong-A Ilbo and Korea Research Center (KRC) on 1,553 adults across the country, the race centered around four candidates – Lee Hoi-chang (30.2%), Cheong Mong-jun (29.5%), Rho Mu-hyeon (17.6%), and Kweon Yeong-gil from the Democratic Labor Party (DLP) (1.7%). The advantage of Rep. Lee over Rep. Cheong is within the margin of error. Rep. Cheong is expected to announce his bid for the presidency on Sept. 17.

In comparison with the Aug. 10 opinion poll conducted just after the Aug. 8 by-elections, popularity for Rep. Lee and Rep. Rho decreased –0.6 percent and –3.2 percent respectively, while independent lawmaker Cheong’s popularity is on the rise (+2.1%).

In a scenario in which Rep. Cheong joins the MDP and participates in the race as candidate from MDP, Rep. Cheong (41.0%) is ahead of Lee Hoi-chang (33.5%) by the margin of 7.5 percentage points.

According to the poll, if the election is held in the present situation, Rep. Lee (35.1%) beats Rep. Rho (24.7%) by 9.4% points. If Rep. Rho participates in the race as candidate from a restyled MDP, Lee will get 37.7%, followed by Rep. Rho (32.2%) and Kweon Yeon-gil from the DLP (3.2%). In a nutshell, the lead of Mr. Lee over Mr. Rho will shrink to 5.5 percentage points.

In the opinion poll, about one in two, or 51.7 percent of the respondents, said that they would cast a vote to whom they support but 31.1 percent of them also answered that they are likely to change their opinion. Among supporters of candidate Rho, 38.5 percent suggested the possibility of change of mind, followed by supporters of Rep. Cheong (31.4%) and backers of Rep. Lee (24.5 %). This means that there could be a lot of change in the line of candidates and there are floating voters, hinting at changes in the popularity of candidates.

Questioned about the outlook for the change in popularity, more than 60 percent of the respondents said “the same” or “decrease” for the popularity of Rep. Lee and Rep. Rho, while 18-20 percents answered “rise.” As for Rep. Cheong, 51.1 percent of them expected the rise in popularity.

As for who is the most likely, Rep. Lee (52.7%) was far ahead of Rep. Cheong (8.8%) and Rep. Rho (6.0%).

In an approval rating for the party, the GNP (31.0%) came first, followed by the MDP (18.0%), the DLP (3.3%) and the United Liberal Democrats (1.1%). Meanwhile, those who said that they do not support any party account for as much as 45.7 percent.

This survey carries a margin of error of ± 2.5 percent.

sunny60@donga.com