President's Approval Rating Drops to 50s; Democratic Party, PPP Both Decline

President Lee Jae-myung's approval rating has fallen back to the high 50s after briefly recovering to the 60 percent level ahead of his visits to China and Japan, according to a new poll.

In Gallup Korea's weekly survey released Wednesday, 58 percent of respondents said the president is "doing well" in his job performance, down 2 percentage points from the previous survey in the second week of January. Those who said he is "doing poorly" stood at 32 percent, down 1 percentage point, while those who withheld their opinion rose 3 percentage points to 10 percent. The survey was conducted from January 13-15 with 1,000 adults aged 18 and older nationwide.

Among those who gave positive evaluations, "diplomacy" was cited most frequently at 36 percent, followed by "economy and livelihoods" (12 percent), "communication" (10 percent), "overall good performance" (7 percent), "job competence" (5 percent), and "policies for ordinary people and welfare" (3 percent).

For negative evaluations, "economy and livelihoods" topped the list at 26 percent. This was followed by "overall poor performance" (9 percent), "pro-China policies" (8 percent), "ethical issues and avoiding his own trial" (6 percent), "diplomacy" (5 percent), "dictatorship and unilateral decisions" (4 percent), "national defense and security" (4 percent), and "excessive welfare and livelihood subsidies" (3 percent).

"While diplomacy's share as the top reason for positive evaluation grew larger, it failed to drive further increases in the approval rating," Gallup Korea said. "Among reasons for negative evaluation, 'economy and livelihoods' and 'overall poor performance' increased."

In party support ratings, both the Democratic Party of Korea and the People Power Party declined. The Democratic Party's support fell 4 percentage points from the previous survey to 41 percent. The People Power Party also failed to gain ground despite major scandals engulfing the ruling party, including allegations of "nomination donations," dropping 2 percentage points to 24 percent.

When asked about their favorability toward leaders of four neighboring countries, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi ranked highest at 22 percent. Chinese President Xi Jinping received a favorability rating of 21 percent, while U.S. President Donald Trump recorded 19 percent. Russian President Vladimir Putin stood at 6 percent.

The unfavorability rankings showed the opposite pattern. Putin topped the list at 84 percent, followed by Trump at 71 percent, Xi at 66 percent, and Takaichi at 59 percent.

The survey was conducted via telephone interviews using randomly selected virtual mobile phone numbers provided by three mobile carriers. The margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level, with a response rate of 11.9 percent. Detailed information is available on the National Election Survey Deliberation Committee website.