Final polling averages along with exit polls (from Japanese election blog)
Hong was projected to get around 17% of the vote, exit polls said 23.3% and most likely he will end up with around 24.3%
What's with the massive jump for Ahn Cheol-soo? Where did it come from? No one else seemed to lose support (in fact Moon Jae-in had an increase at the same time).
He campaigned as the anti-Moon candidate which got him a lot of support from conservatives who where gonna vote for him just to stop moon. Then he tanked in the debates and Hong was able to get a lot of that conservative vote to come home.
But where did his support come from in the first place? Was there just a big block of undecideds? It looks like 25% just went to him without anyone else loosing any. Was there another candidate in the race that dropped out?
Undecideds. Polling in South Korea (in Asia, really) always reports enormous percentages undecided. The number of undecideds dropped considerably over the course of the campaign, mostly coinciding with when Ahn surged. Then, as his support collapsed, it mostly went to other candidates rather than back to undecided.
