The Democratic Party swept 12 of the metropolitan mayor and governor races in the June 3 local elections, but its nationwide vote share of 51 percent against the People Power Party's 42 percent points to a far narrower gap, according to analysis.
While the current winner-take-all structure—in which a single additional vote secures an entire district—produced a landslide result, analysts say the overall sentiment of voters reflected a choice weighted toward checks and balances rather than unconditional support for the government and ruling party.
According to the National Election Commission on Wednesday, as of 3 p.m. and based on a nationwide count rate of 99.92 percent, total votes cast stood at 27,228,948, including invalid ballots. Of these, the Democratic Party won 14,028,262 votes and the People Power Party won 11,557,285 votes. By vote share, that translates to 51.5 percent for the Democratic Party and 42.4 percent for the People Power Party. The Democratic Party led by about 2.47 million votes, but the gap was not as overwhelming as the metropolitan leadership results suggest.
Applying this vote share simply across the 16 metropolitan governments, one calculation suggests the Democratic Party could have taken 8 to 9 and the People Power Party 6 to 7. Compared with the actual 12-4 outcome, the vote share alone could have produced a close 8-7 or 9-6 contest. In this election, People Power Party Seoul mayoral candidate Oh Se-hoon staged a comeback at the 93.9 percent count mark, confirming a rallying of the conservative base, but some assessments note that the overall structure of voter sentiment was closer to balanced.
In the actual metropolitan leadership races, the gap between ruling and opposition candidates was within 5 percentage points in most regions: Seoul (Jung Won-oh 48.13 percent, Oh Se-hoon 49.15 percent), Busan (Jeon Jae-soo 50.52 percent, Park Heong-jun 47.90 percent), Ulsan (Kim Sang-wook 48.73 percent, Kim Doo-gyeom 45.74 percent), Gangwon (Woo Sang-ho 51.81 percent, Kim Jin-tae 48.18 percent), South Gyeongsang (Kim Kyoung-soo 48.71 percent, Park Wan-su 51.28 percent), and South Chungcheong (Park Soo-hyun 52.53 percent, Kim Tae-heum 47.46 percent). Excluding traditional strongholds such as the Honam and Yeongnam regions, only Gyeonggi, Sejong, and Jeju saw gaps of 10 percentage points or more.
The balance becomes even clearer when strongholds where ruling and opposition support bases rally strongly are excluded. Setting aside South Jeolla, Gwangju, and North Jeolla, as well as Daegu and North Gyeongsang, the two parties' vote shares stand at 51.2 percent and 44.3 percent, respectively, further narrowing the gap.
Considering that the Lee Jae-myung government, in its first year in office, has maintained an approval rating of around 60 percent, the ruling party's vote share in the low 50s is being interpreted as a somewhat meager result as a midterm assessment. Political observers see it as the result of a strong rallying of the core support base, while moderates revealed a degree of desire to keep the government in check.
While Democratic Party leader Jung Cheong-rae assessed that "the people cheered on the hard-working Lee Jae-myung government and gave strength to the Democratic Party," the fact that the vote share was lower than the president's approval rating is also interpreted as a sign that some voters defected.
Shin Yul, a professor of political science and diplomacy at Myongji University, pointed out, "It appears that a significant number of moderate voters felt imbalance or unfairness in the current government's policies or major issues, and expressed this through their votes." He added, "While the result is a Democratic Party victory, it is difficult to overlook the swing voters' desire for checks."
In political circles, there is also analysis that the controversy over withdrawing prosecutions, hardline real estate policies, ruling-opposition nomination conflicts, and disputes over the unification of pro-government forces deepened fatigue among moderates. In particular, the strengthening of conservative leanings among the 20s and 30s generation and the ruling party's defeat in the Seoul mayoral race are seen as connected to this trend.
One political insider explained, "On the surface it looks like a ruling party landslide, but structurally it was an election in which moderates played the role of a counterweight and adjusted the overall landscape. Had it been a normal competitive structure, the result could have been far more closely contested."
