DPK Local Election Victories
South Korea's Ruling Democratic Party Projected to Win 11 of 16 Local Races
Exit polls ahead of South Korea’s June 3 local elections project the ruling Democratic Party (DPK) will win 11 of 16 mayoral and gubernatorial races, giving President Lee Jae Myung a potential boost as he moves into his second year. The DPK is expected to capture Seoul, with candidate Chong Won-o leading incumbent PPP mayor Oh Se-hoon, while the outcome in Busan remains too close to call despite a narrow DPK lead in one forecast. The DPK is also projected to be ahead in several other key regions, though a close race in places such as Daegu and uncertainty in a few provinces could limit—or delay—any “landslide” label. Voters are treating the election as an early verdict on Lee’s first year and as a test of whether the conservative People Power Party (PPP) can recover from the fallout of former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed martial law bid. Pre-election assessments credited Lee’s pocketbook-focused approach and supportive markets, but critics pointed to housing strains and alleged efforts to shield allies from criminal cases through legal and political channels. Final results were expected to take hours as turnout and margins in tightly contested areas are likely to determine how large the DPK’s gains ultimately appear.
Key Points
In Seoul’s mayoral race, the exit poll projected DPK candidate **Chong Won-o at 51.4% vs PPP incumbent Oh Se-hoon at 46%**, while a separate JTBC forecast showed **Chong at 53.5% vs Oh at 42.9%**—illustrating how the size of the margin could vary across pollsters.
For Busan, the exit poll (within the margin of error) showed **DPK’s Chun Jae-soo at 50.2% and PPP Mayor Park Heong-joon at 48.3%**, underscoring that the race was not only “too close to call” but also quantified as a narrow lead.
The exit poll methodology included a specific footprint: conducted by the **Korea Election Pool** (KBS, MBC, SBS) using surveys at **615 polling stations nationwide** plus a **telephone poll of about 108,000 voters**, and it reported a **margin of error of 1.7 to 4.1 percentage points at a 95% confidence level**.
In the **Gyeonggi gubernatorial** contest, the exit poll projected a large gap: former DPK chairwoman and former justice minister **Choo Mi-ae at 60.4% vs PPP rival Yang Hyang-ja at 34.1%**.
Election-day scale and turnout were also detailed: voters cast ballots for **4,227 posts** (including **16 governors/mayors**), voting ran **6 a.m. to 6 p.m.** at **14,288 polling stations**, and the **National Election Commission** reported turnout of **57.4% as of 5 p.m.**, up from **47.6%** at the same time in 2022.
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