By Kim Rahn
Moon Jae-in, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), has widened his lead over runner-up Ahn Cheol-soo of the minor liberal People’s Party, in opinion polls conducted after their first TV debate.
A poll conducted by Hankook Research, Monday, showed that Moon garnered support of 42.6 percent, up from 38 percent in the polling agency’s previous survey announced Thursday before the first televised debate was aired that evening.
In contrast to Moon, Ahn’s support dropped to 35.6 percent from 38.3 percent.
Hong Joon-pyo of the conservative Liberty Korea Party had 7.3 percent, followed by Sim Sang-jung of the minor progressive Justice Party with 3.9 percent, and Yoo Seong-min of the minor conservative Bareun Party with 2.7 percent.
“The tide is again turning toward Moon, presumably following his good performance in the TV debate and the controversy over Ahn’s pledge about kindergartens,” an official at Hankook Research said.
In the poll, Moon’s debate performance ranked second following Yoo, while Ahn ranked second-worst. Ahn earlier said he would build more school-affiliated public kindergartens instead of large-scale independent ones, but this pledge drew ire from parents who prefer the latter and say the country is short of public kindergartens regardless of whether they are school-affiliated or independent.
But it remains to be seen whether Moon will extend his lead or Ahn will catch up again, because 14.9 percent of respondents said they were disappointed in the candidates they supported after watching the debate but have not changed their minds yet.
“Those people deferred their decisions about whether to support other candidates, so their choice may change later following more TV debates or other circumstances,” the official said.
Some 56 percent said the debate did not influence their support for candidates, while 2.6 percent said they immediately began supporting other candidates.
Another poll by Realmeter also showed Moon had support of 45.4 percent, up from 44.8 percent before the debate. Ahn’s rate dropped to 30.7 percent from 36.5 percent.
A survey by the Korea Society Opinion Institute also showed support for Moon rose by 5.1 percentage points to 46.9 percent from a week earlier. Ahn’s rate fell by 3.5 percentage points to 34.4 percent.