South Korean presidential race tightens sharply after tv debate

Shinhye Kang and Soo-Hyang Choi, Bloomberg News on May 23, 2025

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South Korean presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung saw his lead in the election campaign narrow sharply in the latest opinion poll released Friday as the conservative ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo made up ground after their first TV debate.

The opposition Democratic Party nominee Lee had the backing of about 45% in a Gallup Korea poll conducted between May 20-22, a drop of 6 percentage points compared with the previous week. Support for the ruling People Power Party’s Kim rose by 7 percentage points to 36%.

While that still leaves Lee with the upper hand, Kim could draw neck and neck with him if he is able to convince the Reform Party’s Lee Jun-seok to stand down and is then able to garner most of his support.

The Reform Party’s Lee improved his standing by two percentage points to 10%, reaching the highest level since the founding of the party.

South Korea goes to the polls on June 3 to elect a new leader after six months of political instability, sparked by former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s abrupt declaration of martial law. Investors are hoping the new president will try to unite a deeply divided society and put Asia’s fourth-biggest economy on a recovery path.

The latest poll comes after the contenders faced off in their first television debate on Sunday. The survey showed more people were expressing their choices, with the proportion of undecided voters dropping to levels seen just before the last presidential election. A second televised debate is scheduled for Friday evening.

“Conservatives who were reluctant to give their views when the martial law decree and the impeachment were dominating the news are now revealing their positions as the actual vote nears,” said Eom Kyeong-young, a former government official who is now director of the Zeitgeist Institute, a research group in Seoul.

The state of the economy and fighting U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs are among the hot topics for voters according to recent opinion surveys. While Lee warned during the presidential debate against rushing into a deal with Trump, Kim has vowed to resolve the issue by pressing for a face-to-face meeting with the U.S. president.

While the election appeared to be a lost cause for the conservatives at the start of the campaign, the vote will now likely hinge on whether Lee Jun-seok or Kim stands down.

Lee Jun-seok, a former PPP leader who voted for Yoon’s impeachment, said at a news conference late Thursday that he will not be joining forces with Kim and that he’ll stay in the race until the end, accusing Kim’s party of taking “insulting” action to pressure him to merge their campaigns.

Kim seems unlikely to relent as he has more support than the Reform Party candidate. Kim has already shown a determination to battle on after the PPP leadership tried to swap him with a more moderate contender before candidates were officially registered.

“If it continues to be a three-way race, Lee Jae-myung will win,” said Eom. “But if the two conservatives join hands, the result could be very different.”

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—With assistance from Yuko Takeo, Heesu Lee, Hyonhee Shin and Brian Fowler.