Analysis of the 22nd General Election in 2024: Midterm Evaluation, Political Polarization, and Third Parties

Opposition's Landslide Victory and Ruling Party's Crushing Defeat, Deepening Political Polarization

The 22nd General Election, held in April 2024, served as a midterm evaluation of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. The ruling party failed to change public opinion against the president and suffered a devastating defeat, while the opposition, advocating for a referendum on the administration, achieved a landslide victory. Both major parties monopolized district seats and circumvented the semi-proportional representation system by establishing satellite parties. As a result of the election, for the first time since the current constitution was enacted, there were no independent winners, and the Justice Party, which had consistently secured seats as a third party, collapsed into an extra-parliamentary party. This phenomenon illustrates the extent of political polarization in Korea.

While the mechanism of holding power politically accountable worked in this general election, which is a positive aspect of Korean democracy, the political polarization reaffirmed through the election is a dark reality of Korean democracy. This book focuses on the various aspects of Korean politics revealed in the election process and results, aiming to analyze their changes and characteristics from a comprehensive perspective and provide a foundation for academic discussion toward healthy democracy.

EAI's Election Panel Survey: A New Horizon in Korean Electoral Politics Research

The East Asia Institute (EAI) has been conducting panel opinion surveys since the 2006 local elections to gauge public opinion trends before and after major elections. It continues to publish the results analyzed by Korean politics and election experts in book form as a research project. EAI's research project, which has established itself as a treasure trove for the study of Korean electoral politics, not only presents theoretical frameworks for understanding the constantly changing landscape of Korean voters but also serves to create a forum for discussions aimed at advancing Korean democracy.

The 22nd General Election Examined Through the Perspectives of 12 Experts

This book is divided into three parts: Part I discusses the background of the strengthening of the 'check the administration' argument over the 'stabilize the administration' argument, which dominated the 22nd General Election; Part II discusses the influence of factors such as gender, assets, and ideology on voter behavior; and Part III discusses the impact of issues that arose during the election period, such as nomination conflicts, the actions of key politicians, and controversies surrounding the fairness of election management.

In Chapter 1, Kang Won-taek, Director of the EAI Center for Democratic Studies and Professor at Seoul National University, explains that the midterm evaluation of President Yoon Suk-yeol's state administration overshadowed the evaluation of each party's ideology and policies. In particular, centrist voters in the Seoul metropolitan area, who had previously supported President Yoon, withdrew their support as the election approached. The author points out that President Yoon, unlike past presidents, failed to secure a stable support base and that controversies surrounding his family and associates that emerged during the election period accelerated the departure of his supporters due to his inability to respond in a timely manner.

In Chapter 2, Yoo Jae-sung, Professor at Keimyung University, analyzes how the voter turnout of ruling and opposition party supporters in each region changed compared to the 2022 election and, based on this, analyzes the reasons for the ruling party's defeat. While about 20% of voters who chose Yoon in 2022 gave up their expectations of the ruling party and abstained from voting over the two years, over 90% of voters who chose Lee Jae-myung in the same year voted for the Democratic Party in the general election due to their anger towards the People Power Party, thus driving the opposition's victory. The author explains that the narrow victories of the opposition in closely contested districts in the single-member district system accumulated, leading to the ruling party's overwhelming defeat.

In Chapter 3, Yoo Sung-jin, Professor at Ewha Womans University, re-examines the election results by focusing on the voting behavior of voters who held "conflicting attitudes"—either agreeing with both the 'check the administration' and 'stabilize the administration' arguments or disagreeing with both—in this general election. Conflicting voters, who accounted for about 15% of the panel survey respondents, tended to support third-party candidates relatively more in both district and proportional representative elections. The author interprets this voting behavior as a result of active dissatisfaction with the major parties and emphasizes that the two parties must move away from operating based on their hardline supporters and strive to regain the trust of the majority of voters to resolve the dissatisfaction of conflicting voters.

In Chapter 4, Sung Ye-jin, a full-time researcher at the Center for Good Democracy Research at Sungkyunkwan University, presents the institutional constraints of Korea's presidential system that affect voter choices, focusing on the voting behavior of voters who hold different evaluations of the president and the ruling party. The higher the voters' preference for the president than for the ruling party, the stronger the influence of their evaluation of the president's state administration on their voting decisions. The author concludes that retrospective voting in midterm elections involves a complex consideration of evaluations of both the president and the ruling party, suggesting that this complex psychological mechanism could be key to explaining the dynamism of Korean politics.

In Chapter 5, Koo Bon-sang, Professor at Chungbuk National University, diagnoses that the "modern gender gap," where women participate more in voting and tend to support progressive parties more than men, was observed among voters in their 20s in the 2024 general election. However, unlike the 2022 presidential election, differences in perceptions of gender-related issues did not lead to significant differences in voting behavior. Notably, women in their 20s showed a strong aversion to conservative parties and politicians, and tended to support the Democratic Party as an alternative. The author predicts that the continued support of women in their 20s for the Democratic Party since the 2022 presidential election may lead to psychological attachment, which has significant implications for the formation of the future political landscape.

In Chapter 6, Kim Soo-in, a doctoral candidate at Seoul National University, focuses on real estate as a variable in voting choices and reveals that "asset voting" behavior, where a higher asset size significantly increases the probability of voting for a conservative party, was confirmed among voters in the Seoul metropolitan area. The author points out that this asset voting phenomenon can lead to the perception of linking conservative parties with the image of a "party for the rich" and suggests that the People Power Party should attempt to set new agendas and actively approach centrist voters in the Seoul metropolitan area to expand its support base and political reach.

In Chapter 7, Jung Yeon-kyung, a researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences at Seoul National University, identifies the voting decision factors for voters who cast ballots for the Jo Guk Innovation Party and the Reform Party, which entered the National Assembly in the 22nd general election. It is confirmed that middle-class and above voters with high political interest expressed their disappointment with the major parties, stemming from the presidential administration's performance and the nomination process, by voting for new parties ideologically closer to them. The author analyzes that while Jo Guk Innovation Party voters engaged in protest voting as a temporary protest against the Democratic Party, Reform Party voters are more likely to have engaged in protest voting after completely breaking away from supporting the two major parties.

In Chapter 8, Lee Han-soo, Professor at Ajou University, explores the background and results of split voting, where voters choose different parties for district and proportional representative seats. Approximately 41% of panel survey respondents engaged in split voting. While supporters of minor parties showed a tendency to split their votes as their level of political knowledge increased, supporters of major parties showed the opposite tendency, consistently voting for the same party as their political knowledge increased. The author explains that the greater the ideological gap between the major parties and voters, whom they feel relatively closer to, the less likely split voting becomes, suggesting that voters decide whether to split their vote by considering the ideological position of the parties.

In Chapter 9, Seo Hyun-jin, Professor at Sookmyung Women's University, explains that voters' evaluations of the nomination process of each party had a significant impact on their voting choices. The lower the evaluation of the nominations of the Democratic Party and the People Power Party, the lower the probability of voting for those parties. Notably, the more negatively voters evaluated the nominations of both parties, the higher the probability of voting for a minor party. The author suggests that the nomination method, which grants absolute authority to the central party and nomination committee, has the potential to infringe upon democratic representation and proposes establishing procedural legitimacy by codifying nomination criteria and methods in advance.

In Chapter 10, Gil Jeong-ah, Professor at the Institute for East Asian Studies at Korea University, analyzes the multifaceted landscape of Korean politics based on the differences in evaluations of the ruling party and its representative politicians (President Yoon Suk-yeol, Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung) by supporters of the People Power Party and the Democratic Party. A majority of supporters of both parties perceive the representative politician of their party more negatively than the party itself. Negative perceptions of the party appear to lower favorability towards the representative politician more significantly than vice versa. Based on these results, the author interprets that the core supporters of both parties tend to attribute the causes of negative situations surrounding the party to individuals rather than the system.

In Chapter 11, Shin Jeong-seop, Professor at Soongsil University, examines the impact of voters' evaluations of the legislative activities of incumbent district representatives on their voting decisions. The more positively incumbents are evaluated, the higher the probability of voting for that incumbent or a candidate from the same party. This positive evaluation appears to be somewhat independent of the sense of identification with the party to which the incumbent belongs. The author diagnoses that district representative elections are not merely proxy battles of central politics or a means of judging the government, but also serve as a means of ensuring the political accountability of representatives.

In Chapter 12, Kim Jun-seok, Professor at Dongguk University, analyzes voters' perceptions of election fairness based on survey results regarding election management. Approximately 34% of panel survey respondents do not trust the National Election Commission's overall management of the vote, with distrust in early voting being higher than in same-day voting. The author suggests the possibility that the National Election Commission's mismanagement and lack of explanation may have negatively impacted voters' perceptions, and proposes that the National Election Commission needs to make substantive efforts, such as strengthening management and providing sufficient explanations, rather than dismissing concerns about election procedures as conspiracy theories of election fraud.

Table of Contents

Foreword _ 6

Part I: Check the Administration vs. Stabilize the Administration

Chapter 1: The 22nd General Election and Presidential Evaluation _ 14

Kang Won-taek | Seoul National University

Chapter 2: Why Did the Ruling Party Suffer a Complete Defeat? Motivations for Voting and Abstention _ 42

Yoo Jae-sung | Keimyung University

Chapter 3: The Choice of Conflicting Voters in an Era of Polarization: Check the Administration vs. Stabilize the Administration _ 56

Yoo Sung-jin | Ewha Womans University

Chapter 4: The Gap in Favorability Between the President and the Ruling Party and Retrospective Voting in Midterm Elections: Emotional Responses and Voting Decisions Based on Conflicting Attitudes _ 88

Sung Ye-jin | Sungkyunkwan University

Part II: Voting Behavior: Gender, Assets, Ideology

Chapter 5: The Modern Gender Gap Revealed in the Voting Behavior of Voters Under 20 _ 122

Koo Bon-sang | Chungbuk National University

Chapter 6: Asset Voting in the 2024 General Election: Focusing on Voters in the Seoul Metropolitan Area _ 154

Kim Soo-in | Seoul National University

Chapter 7: Defection or Protest? Factors Influencing Voting Decisions for the Jo Guk Innovation Party and the Reform Party _ 174

Jung Yeon-kyung | Seoul National University

Chapter 8: Who Splits Their Vote? The Influence of Political Knowledge and Ideological Perception on Party Support _ 200

Lee Han-soo | Ajou University

Part III: Election Process

Chapter 9: Did Voters' Evaluations of Major Parties' Nominations Influence Voting Choices? _ 234

Seo Hyun-jin | Sookmyung Women's University

Chapter 10: How Do Supporters of the Democratic Party and the People Power Party Perceive Their Representative Politicians? _ 270

Gil Jeong-ah | Korea University

Chapter 11: Voters' Evaluations of District Representatives and Voting Choices _ 318

Shin Jeong-seop | Soongsil University

Chapter 12: Differences in Perceptions of Early Voting, Same-Day Voting, and Election Fairness _ 338

Kim Jun-seok | Dongguk University

Appendix: Key Results of the 22nd General Election Panel Survey _ 363

Contributors' Biographies _ 372