Polls show gap significantly tightens

With just days before the Dec. 19 presidential election, the race between Park Geun-hye and Moon Jae-in is becoming too close to call.

Park, the ruling Saenuri Party candidate enjoyed a lead outside the statistical margin of error in some polls a few days ago. However, the latest polls show either her lead gone or Moon, the main opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) candidate, taking over.

From today, the disclosure of opinion polls is banned.

What will happen during this statistical dark period is anybody’s guess.

Is it going to be an upset victory for Moon or a down to the wire win for Park?

The problem is that opinion polls have lost a great deal of credibility because their numbers vary. Experts argue that the sampling methods have fallen behind the changes in people’s lifestyle.

Moon, who has trailed Park, now has higher ratings in some polls. He earned 45.3 percent support against Park’s 44.9 percent in a survey conducted Wednesday by the Hankook Ilbo, a sister paper of The Korea Times.

In the poll, 81.2 percent of the respondents said they will not change their mind over which candidate they would vote for, while 14.2 percent responded they could alter their position. Also, 49.2 percent want a “regime change,” while 38.5 percent want the ruling party to stay in power.

A JTBC and RealMeter survey, however, had Park leading Moon by 48 percent to 47.5 percent.

The gap between the rivals has been around 3 percentage points with Park leading in previous surveys. But the 60-year-old conservative contender won outside the margin of error with 48.9 percent against Moon’s 42.1 percent in an SBS and TNS survey conducted between Monday and Wednesday.

“You can notice a general tendency by excluding the results in the two extremes. So, 2 to 4 percentage points can be seen as the general gap in the latest polls which has narrowed from last weekend’s 5 percentage points,” said Yoon Hee-woong, a senior analyst at the Korea Society Opinion Institute.

Political watchers noted that voters in their 40s and the capital area as well as undecided voters will play a key role in deciding the winner.

Voters in their 40s showed fluctuations in support rates depending on pollsters. Moon won against Park in capturing votes from those in their 40s, earning 48 percent against Park’s 39.8 percent in an Mbrain survey, while Park garnered 46.6 percent against Moon’s 40.6 percent in a Joongang Ilbo survey.

This compares with voters in their 20s and 30s, and 50s and 60s whose support is comparatively clear.

Moon has the upper hand in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province in the Mbrain survey, while Park won in the Joongang Ilbo results. The gap in both surveys is less than two percentage points.

The capital and the surrounding area has emerged as a key battleground, given that the candidate who garners the most votes in that area has successfully moved into Cheong Wa Dae in previous elections.

Also, swing voters’ final decisions have drawn keen attention as they still account for around 10 percent of the electorate, according to recent opinion polls.

RealMeter head Lee Taek-soo said, “The number of undecided voters will decline on the verge of the election. Considering that the gap between the two candidates is really small compared to any previous elections, swing voters will want to prevent wasting their votes.”

Other than these factors, North Korea’s rocket launch, voting rates and whether or not the Unified Progressive Party’s Lee Jung-hee withdraws from the election are said to be variables in deciding the winner on Dec. 19. <The Korea Times/Jun Ji-hye>