Bring back the bunnies: Lee, Yoon grapple with revolt of stronghold voters

The main opposition People Power Party candidate, Yoon Suk-yeol, center, holds dried fish at a market in the southwestern city of Namwon, North Jeolla Province, while campaigning on Saturday. Yonhap

By Kang Hyun-kyung

Gettyimagesbank

Rabbits are a metaphor used by campaign strategists in Korea to refer to voters.

There are two different kinds of rabbits ― domestic and wild. Domestic rabbits ― or "bunnies" ― refer to traditional supporters of certain parties, such as constituents in their stronghold regions, while those who support other parties or swing voters are called wild rabbits.

The rabbit metaphor comes from an old Korean adage: "You can lose your pet rabbits if you're out looking for wild rabbits." The wisdom warns of an endangered opportunity cost, encouraging people to take good care of what they already have, and only then seek others that can give you extra benefit.

In most elections, both the conservative and liberal parties have similar portions of bunnies among the entire voting population. Therefore, the recipe for winning boils down to the consolidation of votes from bunnies with extra support from wild rabbits sufficient enough to turn the election in their favor.

The March 9 presidential election is exceptional.

Some voters ― both liberals and conservative ― have turned their backs on their previously preferred parties. Contrary to conventional wisdom about winning elections, the two leading presidential candidates ― Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and Yoon Suk-yeol of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) ― are being advised to devise tactics that can put their bunnies back into their hutches as they have both failed to gain the full backing of people who were once their traditional supporters.

On Feb. 8, DPK lawmaker Woo Sang-ho faced a tough question regarding why Lee failed to get the full support of traditional liberal voters who overwhelmingly cast their ballots in favor of the party's candidates in previous elections.

"There are people out there who support President Moon Jae-in, but in this election, some of them are identified by pollsters as undecided voters. Why do you think these people have turned their backs on Lee, and instead choose to remain as undecided voters?" a radio show host asked the lawmaker.

Woo answered vaguely, saying, "I think the reason why he is not fully backed by our traditional supporters is not that important at this moment. The question we should ask now is how we can convince them to return their support to our party."

Feeling that his question was not answered, the host demanded Woo answer directly. "Then, why do you think they don't support Lee?" Woo again hesitated in answering. "You already know why," he said without elaborating.

The lawmaker shared his analysis of the March 9 presidential election.

"This election is unusual. When we look at undecided voters, we can find there are unique groups of undecided voters: like you mentioned, there are voters who previously supported President Moon in the 2017 election but some of them don't support Lee in this election," he said.

Woo noted the DPK is not the only party that is being embarrassed by a revolt of traditional voters.

"I understand that there are quite a lot of conservative voters who previously voted for conservative presidential candidates but they're skeptical about PPP candidate Yoon, too," he said. "Campaign strategists of both camps are grappling with these undecided voters and trying to figure out how they can bring them back into the fold."

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The Ruling Democratic Party of Korea presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung, gestures during an impromptu campaign speech in Chungju City, North Chungcheong Province, on Saturday. Yonhap

'Original sin'

Both Lee and Yoon share one thing in common: they have their version of the "original sin" that propelled their parties' traditional supporters to be skeptical of their presidential bids.

Back in 2017, Lee drew the ire of Moon's supporters during the primaries to select the DPK presidential candidate. "Unlike the other candidate, I've never ever influenced certain employers to place my son in their companies. I also have never used my elected position to make money," Lee said. It was apparent that Lee was targeting Moon with his remarks.

His verbal attacks infuriated Moon's supporters, who are well known for their stalwart support for the politician. Some of them felt that Lee had gone too far. That incident established their visceral dislike of Lee and that sentiment is still fresh among some supporters.

Yoo Seong-jin, a professor of political science at Ewha Womens University, said voters' fandom-like support for their preferred candidate can lead them to "disapprove" of the same party's presidential pick, if they believe he or she doesn't meet their expectations. "Some supporters of Moon seem to think that Lee is unfit to be the successor to their favorite politician," he said.

Yoon's past record as a prosecutor who investigated former President Park Geun-hye after she was impeached has made him vulnerable to criticism from some right-wing supporters. These right-wingers have revealed their outright discomfort toward Yoon.

The fact that Yoon was handpicked by President Moon to lead the investigation as prosecutor-general has added to their distrust of the candidate as the standard-bearer of the conservative party.

An East-West divide

The revolt of conservative and liberal voters may implicate that the East-West divide in Korea's elections may be coming to an end in the near future. For decades, election results have shown that the eastern provinces sweepingly cast their ballots for the conservative party, whereas the western provinces favored the liberal party.

Professor Yoo said voters are changing and so is their voting behavior.

"I believe some supporters of President Moon simply back him because they like his personality, not because of his policy priorities; and voters' fandom-like support for candidates has been very noticeable in Korean politics," said the political scientist.

Supporters of the "Star politician" Moon turning their backs on DPK candidate Lee partly explains why his ratings have been stagnant in recent polls.

Polls that were taken after the Lunar New Year showed that Yoon was ahead of Lee, although within the margin of error.

The latest Gallup poll released Friday confirmed that the election is still a tight race. Yoon earned support of 37 percent of respondents, followed by Lee with 36 percent ― well within the margin of error. Minor center-right People's Party candidate Ahn Cheol-soo stood at 13 percent followed by the minor progressive Justice Party's standard-bearer Sim Sang-jung who earned 3 percent.

The survey was undertaken from Feb. 8 and 10 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

The Gallup polls taken this year, however, have shown a clear trend ― there has been a meaningful change in voters' support for the two leading presidential candidates.

DPK candidate Lee's support has been stagnant between 34 percent and 37 percent, whereas figures for the PPP's Yoon have been on the rise from 26 percent in a poll in the first week of January to 37 percent in the latest survey.

More details of the recent polls for the presidential election are available on the National Election Commission's website.

Similar to Lee, Yoon has also been suffering as some traditional PPP supporters have become skeptical about his presidential bid. Unlike Lee, however, Yoon's rate has been relatively less affected by these disgruntled conservative voters, partly because some of Moon's supporters, albeit the exact figure being unavailable, have switched their support in favor of the PPP candidate.

Yoon has been highly critical of the Moon government, but has stopped short of criticizing the President directly. In a recent interview uploaded on a YouTube channel run by the PPP, Yoon revealed his affection for Moon. "Although I didn't know him very well and had never met him personally before I was tapped for prosecutor-general, I had a good impression of him and thought he was a nice man," he said. "There's a group of people surrounding the President… and they are responsible for all sorts of irregularities… They do have their common interest and if it's undermined or negatively affected, they didn't stand behind him and unthinkable things happened."

Yoon's separation of Moon from his aides in his criticism of the current government seems to have appealed to "Moon fanatics."