2020 South Korean legislative election (April 15th)

[jaichind]

In 2016 it was Center-Left Democratic Party vs Center-Right Saenuri vs Centrist People's Party with Justice Party as a fringe Left party.   Due to the Park scandals Saenuri  split into the pro-Park Liberty Party and anti-Park Bareun Party 

After Democratic Party Moon was elected in 2017 in a landslide the opposition sought ways to consolidate.  In 2018  People's Party and Bareun Party merged into a Center-Right Bareunmirae while a  more Center-Left faction of the People's Party that opposed the move formed the Centrist Party for Democracy and Peace.  The Center-Left Justice Party if anything grew a bit since 2016.  Right now Bareunmirae and Party for Democracy and Peace are both polling in single digits and behind  Justice Party with Liberty Party a distant second to Democratic Party. 

Moon's approval rating might have dropped a lot since his 2017 landslide victory but for Democratic Party it is still the TINA factor while Liberty Party  needing a couple of election cycles to get out the shadow of the Park scandals.

[jaichind]

It seems in early 2020 Bareunmirae  suffered a split as part of its right wing formed the New Conservative Party.

[jaichind]

New Realmeter poll (diff from 3 days ago)

Democratic Party                        39.9 (-0.4)
Liberty Party                              32.0 (+0.9)
Justice Party                                4.8 (----)
New Conservative Party                3.9 (+0.1)
Bareunmirae                                2.6 (+0.4)
Party for Democracy and Peace     1.5 (+0.1)

Liberty making a nice recovery from the ashes of the Park scandals and might become viable to win an election cycle from now.

[jaichind]

Latest Realmeter poll now that Party for Future Integration has been formed by the merger of New Conservative Party and Onward for Future 4.0 with Liberty Party.

Democratic Party                     41.5
Party for Future Integration      31.6
Justice Party                             4.4
Bareunmirae                             3.7

[jaichind]

Year, for some reason it seems like the election is on although there are signs that ROK is getting the virus under control with the growth in infections growing linearly versus logarithmicaly.   Polls do seems to show that Moon's perceived bungling in handling the crisis is eating into his approval numbers with the newly created big tent Center-Right party United Future Party making good gains on the Democratic party.  I doubt they will overtake the Democrats but I guess they could now make it close.

[jaichind]

The full Realmeter poll with changes from their last poll.

Left: 5.5% (+0.5)
Minjung Party (Minjungdang) 0.8% (-0.5)
Justice Party (Jeong-uidang) 4.7% (+1.0)

Centre-left: 45.0% (+2.9)
Democrats (Minjudang) 45.0% (+2.9)

Centre-right: 35.5% (-3.5)
People Party (Gugmin-uidang) 3.6% (-0.4)
Party for People's Livelihoods (Minsaengdang) 2.1% (+0.7)
United Future Party (Milaetonghabdang) 29.8% (-3.8 )

Far Right: 3.6% (+0.1)
Pro-Park New Party (Chinbagsindang) 1.6% (-0.5)
Liberty Republican Party (Gonghwadang) 2.0% (+0.6)

Others 2.6% (+0.7)
Undecided 7.8% (-0.8 )

Note that Others (2.6%) is the four unaligned leftist parties (Labor, Greens, Women's and Our Future) and the left liberal Open Democrats (co-founded by a guy who served time in jail for slandering a president and was credibly accused of sexual harassment and not really a factor) so the combined leftist vote is at least two points higher. The Minjung Party seems to be crashing (which is good news, the NK friendlies make it too easy to taint the rest of the left).

I think this poll asks for party support and not voting intention.  The same Realmeter poll asked for voting intentions which took into account the recent Democratic Party splinter Open Democrats.

Democratic Party      28.9%
Future Korea Party    28.0%
Open Democrats       11.6%
Justice Party              5.4%
People Party              4.9%

It seems that Open Democrats are taking a good chunk of the Democratic Party vote.

The internet based Dailian Daily poll has the PR vote with Future Korea Party in the lead

Future Korea Party    32.3%
Democratic Party      26.9%
Open Democrats       12.6%
Justice Party              7.4%
People Party              6.0%

It is clear that the Center-Left vote is still well ahead of the Center-Right vote but how well Open Democrats and Justice Party eating into the Democratic Party will determine if Future Korea Party can pull of coming in ahead of the Democratic Party.

[jaichind]

To clarify

United Future Party (미래통합당) is running on FPTP seats.
Future Korea Party (미래한국당) is running on PR seats.


Democratic Party (더불어민주당) is running on FPTP seats.
Together Citizens' Party (더불어시민당) is running on PR seats.

Open Democrats (열린민주당) is minor splinter party running on PR seats

Got it .. thanks for clearing up the differences between those two poll results.  One is FPTP and one is PR.

[jaichind]

To clarify

United Future Party (미래통합당) is running on FPTP seats.
Future Korea Party (미래한국당) is running on PR seats.


Democratic Party (더불어민주당) is running on FPTP seats.
Together Citizens' Party (더불어시민당) is running on PR seats.

Open Democrats (열린민주당) is minor splinter party running on PR seats

Is the reason why Democratic Party  and United Future Party are not running in the PR slate and instead have sister parties run there instead to get some sort of cap on PR seats allocated if a party does well in the FPFP seats (sort of like Germany) ?

[jaichind]

One thing that is fun about ROK elections is that the leaders of all parties are being televised live watching the result of exit polls.

2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqKifMWqbzw

2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS_M7CRdlPE&nohtml5=False

Not sure if I can find a live stream in time to watch the 2020 one live

[jaichind]

Well, at least the Center-Right bloc is well above 100 seats avoiding a 2008 like landslide where the Liberal camp was pushed below 100 seats. 

[jaichind]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSIHg-wlonA

is the 2020 political leaders reaction to exit polls.  Obviously the Democratic Party bloc leaders were happy with the result.

It is DPK-TCP 153-177 with DPK 137-157 and TCP 16-20 on the PR slate
Likewise it is UFP-FKP with 107-131 with UFP 91-111 and FKP 16-20 on the PR slate
Justice has 4-8 and 4-6 on the PR slate which implies Justice got 0-2 on FPTP
PP got 3-5 on the PR slate
PPL go 0-4 and 0-3 on the PR slate which implies PPL got 0-1 FPTP
ODP got 0-3 on the PR slate

It seems ODP is doing worse than expected on the PR slate.  UFP getting 90-110 out of 253 FPTP seats seems better than expected but I guess the old Conservative heartland in Eastern ROK came through for the UFP 

[jaichind]

TCP and FKP tied in PR vote with ODP doing a lot worse than expected makes it seem like the DPK victory over UFP in FPTP seats is mostly about Justice Party PR voter tactical voting for DPK just like in 2016.  The DPK PR vote is not well distributed with a massive but mostly wasted vote lead in Gwangju and Jeolla so a TCP-FKP tie in PR vote should in theory give UFP the edge over DPK in the rest of ROK.  In this case the Justice Party PR vote came to the rescue of the DPK giving it a solid victory in FPTP seats, especially in urban battlegrounds where Justice Party is stronger.

Back in 2016 Saenuri Party only won 105 FPTP seats.  This time UFP is at 91-111 which means they mostly kept their strongholds from 2016 with very minor losses.  The Center-Right is well set up to make a recovery from the Park disaster in a post-Moon era.

[jaichind]

MBS exit poll seems similar to the SBS exit poll with DPK-TCP 155-178 and  UFP-FKP at 107-130.  KBS exit poll is more favorable to the Center-Right with DPK-TCP at 153-170 and UFP-FKP at 116-133

[jaichind]

On SBS so far FPTP seats in terms of leads/won seems to be not that bad for UFP.  It is DPK 108 UFP 97.  I think the outstanding areas are more in urban areas which will clearly lean DPK.

[jaichind]

SBS now has it at DPK 118 UFP 97 in FPTP in terms of leads/won as newer results have a clear DPK lean.  Still a solid performance so far for UFP given the circumstances.  

[jaichind]

SBS now has it at DPK 133 UFP 88 in FPFP seats as the results converge toward exit polls

[jaichind]

SBS now has it at  DPK 134 UFP 96 Justice 1 in FPFP seats and FKP 19 TCP 18 Justice 5 in PR section.

[jaichind]

SBS now has it at  DPK 143 UFP 97 Justice 1 in FPFP seats and FKP 19 TCP 17 Justice 6 in PR section.

[jaichind]

Is there anywhere to find results in English?

Not that I know of.  I mostly just use SBS live stream

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCZfwB-zG30

[jaichind]

SBS now has it at  DPK 156 UFP 92 Independents 5 for FPTP.  FKP 19 TCP 17 Justice 6 PP 3 OCP 2 in PR section.

As expected DPK swept all the urban and Eastern seats while UFP did well in rural and Western seats.

[jaichind]

SBS now has it at  DPK 155 UFP 93 Independents 5 for FPTP.  FKP 17 TCP 17 Justice 6 PP 3 OCP 2 PPL 2 in PR section.  Now UFP-FKP are under-performing exit polls a bit.

[jaichind]

SBS now has it at  DPK 154 UFP 94 Independents 5 (4 Center-Right, 1 Center-Left) for FPTP. 
FKP 17 TCP 17 Justice 6 PP 3 OCP 2 PPL 2 in PR section. 

PR vote count so far seems to be

FKP        35.1%
TCP        33.1%
Justice     8.6%
PP           6.1%
OCP        4.9%
PPL         3.9%

There seems to be some last minute shift of OCP PR voters over to TCP PR.

[jaichind]

SBS now has it at  DPK 157 UFP 90 Justice 1 Independents 5 (4 Center-Right, 1 Center-Left) for FPTP.
FKP 19 TCP 17 Justice 5 PP 3 OCP 2 PPL 1 in PR

PR vote count so far seems to be

FKP        35.5%
TCP        32.8%
Justice     8.6%
PP           6.2%
OCP        4.9%
PPL         3.0%

[jaichind]

So the left now has a majority?

For sure, that was never in doubt. 

[jaichind]

PR vote count so far is

FKP        35.6%   19
TCP        32.6%   17
Justice     8.7%     5
PP           6.3%     3
OCP        4.9%      3
PPL         2.9% (below threshold)
CLP         1.9%

Relative to 2016 it is

Saenuri Party  -> FKP                    +2.1%
Democratic Party -> TCP+OCP      +12.0%
Justice Party -> Justice Party         +1.5%
PP -> PP                                      -20.4%
CLP -> CLP                                   -0.7%

So this election at the PR level is mostly about Ahn Cheol-soo's PP losing ground to TCP+OCP with the Center-Right forces recovering from the Park disaster.