An aggregate analysis that compiles and examines results from multiple agencies opinion polls on the job approval of President Lee Jae Myung indicates that, for the first time since his inauguration, negative evaluations have surpassed positive evaluations.

According to <Opinion Poll ‘Kyunghyang’>, which the Kyunghyang Shinmun derived probabilistically by aggregating results from multiple agencies that were released from June last year to early this month, as of the 1st the positive assessment of presidential job performance was estimated at 46.6% (44.2~49), while the negative assessment was 48.7% (46.3~51.2). Although the 95% confidence intervals overlap, making it difficult to determine a clear lead, this marks the first time since President Lee Jae Myung took office that the negative estimate has exceeded the positive.

The estimated approval of President Lee for the management of state affairs steadily remained in the 50~60% range after his inauguration, but plunged around the June 3 local elections, then showed signs of recovery before falling again. The calculation for this estimate also includes results from surveys conducted after the point when National Assembly Speaker Cho Jeong-sik stated that a constitutional amendment for an incumbent president to serve consecutive terms is “a matter for the people to decide,” which sparked controversy.

By age group, those in their 20s and 30s already had negative evaluations in the lead around the local elections. Even among those in their 40s and 50s, traditionally a support base where the positive rating exceeded 70%, the positive rating as of the 1st came in at 58.1% and 57.1%, the lowest since inauguration. The centrist group, which identified its ideological orientation as ‘moderate,’ had generally buoyed overall support with higher positive ratings than the aggregate, but in the estimate for the 1st, the negative rating at 48.8% overtook the positive at 46.7%.

Among supporters of the Democratic Party, the job approval that had stayed above 90% also fell to 83.6%. Looking at the estimated responses on a four-point scale (‘does very well’, ‘does well’, ‘does poorly’, and ‘does very poorly’) within Democratic Party supporters, the ‘does very well’ assessment that had been in the 70% range has now dropped to 49.9%.

The estimated party support as of the 1st was Democratic Party 41%, People Power Party 32.1%, Fatherland Innovation Party 2.5%, and Reform New Party 2.4%. After the local elections, support for the Democratic Party and the People Power Party converged, but the gap has since widened again.

To produce the estimates of government and party approval, the results of 500 opinion polls conducted from June 9 last year through the 1st of this month and registered with the National Election Survey Deliberation Commission were used. Applying a statistical method called ‘Bayesian inference’, we estimated the movement of opinion trends and institute-specific tendencies to derive current approval levels. Detailed figures by polling organization can be found on the commission website or in <Opinion Poll ‘Kyunghyang’> on the Kyunghyang Shinmun website.