Why Is Lee Jae-myung’s Approval Rating Dropping?

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung blamed his own shortcomings for a steep loss of public support. His approval rating fell to 37 percent in a Gallup Korea poll released that morning, the lowest level since he took office in June 2025. At a standing news conference at the presidential Blue House on September 18, Lee described the decline as puzzling at first. “In the end, I came to think that all of it, taken together, was because of my own shortcomings,” Lee said. And in opening remarks, he noted that he had been flustered by the disappointment that followed the June 3 local elections. However, the slide began earlier. Support for Lee – who took office in June 2025 – had hovered near 60 percent for months before it started falling in mid-May. Among respondents who disapprove of him, 20 percent cited housing policy and 16 percent cited personnel appointments in the latest survey. Aside from specific events, four border trends help explain the slide of the president’s approval ratings. The first is the fading of the Yoon Suk-yeol effect. Lee won the presidency in a special election following the impeachment of Yoon, who had illegitimately declared martial law in December 2024. For months the contrast with his predecessor helped sustain Lee’s ratings. That contrast has weakened over time. Yoon was sentenced to life in prison in February for leading an insurrection. His wife, Kim Keon-hee, had her sentence increased to four years on appeal in April. Although their sentences will likely need to be confirmed in the Supreme Court, which will take years, the question for voters appears to have shifted from who should be punished to who is fixing daily life. It has already been more than 21 months after the martial law declaration and many South Koreans have moved on. The second trend is a gap between the image of a hands-on executive Lee cultivated as a mayor and governor and the delegator he now describes. On Friday, he said he has neither the time nor the ability to micromanage everything. Lee has told staff to refrain from involvement in routine ministry business. His principle is to give authority and hold people firmly accountable. However, the rollout of single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs) shows the risk of this approach. These stock products have hurt retail investors, and South Koreans want an explanation. Former Presidential Policy Chief Kim Yong-beom said in January that he had instructed regulators to review the products. The ETFs went on sale on May 27, days before the local elections. Regulators tightened the rules on July 16 and again on July 29 as losses mounted. The policy chief resigned on September 1, and the Blue House did not give a reason. In his press conference on September 18, Lee said he did not yet know the details of how the products were approved, although he “received a report at the time,” he recalled. Lee conceded that it seems true that there were shortcomings. In such comments, voters who backed him for getting things done may see a president who owns the results but not the process. Housing is another area where Lee has failed to convince voters he is solving the problem. It is the most cited reason for disapproval in the Gallup Korea polling. Lee, for his part, pointed out that prices in outlying areas are still climbing even as those in wealthy Gangnam, the emblematic district for wealth in Seoul, soften. The third problem is communication. Scrutiny of a president tends to sharpen in the second year, and the local elections gave critics an opening. The ruling Democratic Party won 12 of 16 mayoral and gubernatorial races but lost Seoul, where Lee had publicly backed the DP’s candidate, Chong Won-o. During his press conference commemorating his first year in the presidency on June 8, Lee said that losing places the party should have won made the result “at the least, not a success.” Asked how he would talk to the public about housing, specifically, Lee didn’t seem to have an answer. He said on Friday that he would study a variety of methods and invited suggestions. Lee closed by promising to communicate more, listen more and respect more. However, voters have other questions for him. The Kospi closed on September 18 about 24 percent below its June 22 peak. The relationship with Washington keeps shifting. North Korea has stopped answering Seoul. On each of those, voters appear to be waiting to hear from the president himself. U.S. President Donald Trump has pressed Seoul for help in the U.S. war with Iran, especially in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. On March 14, two weeks after beginning strikes against Iran, Trump urged South Korea and four other countries to send warships to the strait. On August 16, he wrote on Truth Social that he had asked Lee whether South Korea would join “the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” South Korea replied, according to Trump, “No thanks!” In the same post, he ordered the Pentagon to substantially reduce joint exercises with South Korea. During his press conference, Lee ruled out sending troops to take part in the Iran-U.S. war. “There will be no dispatch of troops that involves or intervenes in the war,” he said. Still, he noted that a naval unit is already stationed near the Strait of Hormuz. And the Blue House said on Saturday that Lee had not rejected the request from Trump for cooperation on Middle East issues. So South Koreans may be left feeling uncertain as to what the Lee administration will actually do in the Middle East. On North Korea, Lee said Pyongyang “is clearly refusing to communicate with South Korea.” He added that Trump wants dialogue with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and that Seoul is coordinating in advance to make talks possible. He dismissed concerns that South Korea could be sidelined. The fourth problem for Lee, as mentioned above, is personnel. Five ministerial appointments have been forced to withdraw – starting just a month after Lee took office. His education minister pick, Lee Jin-sook, withdrew in July 2025 amid plagiarism allegations. More recently, Yong Hye-in, a two-time lawmaker in the Basic Income Party who was nominated as gender equality minister, withdrew from consideration on September 13. In his press conference on Friday, Lee promised a review of how nominees are vetted. “I plan to re-examine the personnel system now,” Lee said, though he could not promise that problems would never recur. Kim Seung-won, Lee’s justice minister appointee who was attracted critical reporting from the press and belligerence from opposition lawmakers, withdrew the next morning. He was the fifth Lee nominee to fall through since he took office. When Lee had announced a reshuffle on August 30, his chief of staff, Kang Hoon-sik, said competence was the sole criterion. Nonetheless, South Koreans continued to find flaws with his choices. In a Gallup Korea poll released September 11, 61 percent of respondents called Yong unfit and 43 percent said the same of Kim Seung-won. In order to take responsibility for the downward slide in Lee’s approval ratings and the recent series of missteps the Blue House has taken, Kang offered to resign on September 21. According to local media reports, Lee said he has not made any decisions on whether to accept his resignation.