hankyoreh

By Kim Bo-hyeop, staff reporter

The first presidential election poll results to be released in December seem to back up the common quip that “Ahn Cheol-soo’s thoughts will decide the fate of Moon Jae-in,” a play on the titles of the two men’s books, “Ahn Cheol-soo’s Thoughts” and “Moon Jae-in’s Fate”. A survey was conducted by the Korea Society Opinion Institute, commissioned by the Hankyoreh, between Nov. 30 and Dec.1 of 1,000 males and females aged 19 and older nationwide. When asked who they would vote if the election were to take place tomorrow, 40.9% of the respondents chose Moon and 44.9% chose Saenuri Party (NFP) candidate Park Geun-hye.

Some respondents offered up a different answer when asked about the assumption that Ahn would support Moon in the campaign: 47.7 percent said they would vote for Moon and 43.1 percent said they would vote for Park. The results of the two questions were within the 3.1 percentage point margin of error, but the range of variance stood at 8.6 percent depending on whether Ahn would support Moon. This result seems to cast doubt on previous claims made by the Ahn camp, that Ahn must be chosen as the single candidate because Moon would not stand a chance of winning the election if he were the sole opposition candidate.

The change in the results depending on whether Ahn would throw his support behind Moon seems to have been caused by a shift back to Moon of voters who had yet to make up their mind or had moved to support Park after Ahn’s withdrawal. In particular, the movement of the age group who had previously supported Ahn was quite clear.

In this survey, the support for Moon among those in their 20s (including 19-year-olds) and their 30s was 50.8 % and 52.8%, respectively. Those rates went up to 61.5% and 60.2% when Ahn’s support was considered. For this survey, the Hankyoreh increased the number of respondent samples to 500 in Busan, Ulsan, and South Gyeongsang Province, spots predicted to become fierce battlegrounds in this election, to gain more representative results.

The difference between the projected results (Park at 54.6% to Moon’s 32.6%) and the result with the premise of Ahn’s help (Park at 55.1% to Moon’s 36.8%) was not large, but the difference was pronounced among respondents in their 20s and 30s. For the former result, the supporting rates for Moon was 44.6% (respondents in their 20s) and 45.8% (respondents in their 30s), while the rates for the latter were 52.2% (20s) and 53.2% (30s), indicating an increase of more than seven percentage points depending on whether Ahn supports Moon.

By occupation, students were found to be the most likely to change their minds depending on Ahn’s support of Moon. The survey showed that students‘ support rate for Moon was 47.9 percent, but the figures increased by 9.6 percentage point to 57.5 percent when Ahn’s help was premised. By occupation, the self-employed (40.8→50.7), blue-collar workers (34.0→43.1), and homemakers (28.6→35.4) showed large possible shifts.

According to educational background, high school graduates and those with university degrees supported Moon more under the assumption of support from Ahn. The change in voter support was more pronounced among political moderates, who previously showed high rates of support for Ahn, than among those who described themselves as progressives or conservatives. The support rate for Moon among the moderates was 44.2%, which went up to 53.9% when Ahn’s help was considered.

Undecided voters or respondents who did not provide an answer, showed a 13.1% support rate for Moon, but the figure declined to 8.2% when Ahn’s help was presupposed. By narrowing the group to the respondents who said they had supported Ahn before his resignation, the rates declined from 19.8% to 10.9%. Based on the results of this survey, 5% of those who refused to answer and 10% of those who have yet to make up their minds following Ahn’s resignation are expected to change their votes based on whether Ahn backs up Moon’s candidacy.

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