Photo: Special forces battle the legislative aides in the National Assembly on the night of December 3, 2024. Credit: Yonhap News.
Although the People Power Party 국민의힘’s presidential candidate Kim Mun-su 김문수 won 41.2% of the vote in the June 3 presidential election, not everyone who voted for Kim did so out of support for Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열’s coup attempt. According to an in-depth poll by SisaIN 시사인 magazine, 54% of Kim voters said they did not agree with Kim’s position on Yoon’s martial law declaration and impeachment.
Even among self-identified conservatives, a strong majority - 67% - disapproved of Yoon’s December 3, 2024 martial law declaration. Nevertheless, among the self-identified conservatives who approved of Yoon’s impeachment, a plurality (41%) voted for Kim, while 38% voted for Lee Jae-myung 이재명, and 19% voted for New Reform Party presidential candidate Lee Jun-seok 이준석 개혁신당 후보.
There are indications that the landslide election loss is causing the fever to break among conservative voters. Even among self-identified conservatives who spend at least one hour a day watching right-wing YouTube - the demographic most likely to support Yoon’s self-coup attempt - 54% said they disapproved of Yoon’s martial law declaration, a marked jump from the same poll’s finding of 27% in February. Similarly, within that demographic, 42% said they disagreed with the conspiracy theory about Chinese election interference, compared to 24% who said the same in February.
