{"id":2198246,"date":"2022-08-16T10:36:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T01:36:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nknews.org\/pro\/?p=2198246"},"modified":"2023-04-05T16:11:44","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T07:11:44","slug":"yoon-suk-yeol-finds-his-approval-rating-floor-despite-botched-flood-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/koreapro.org\/2022\/08\/yoon-suk-yeol-finds-his-approval-rating-floor-despite-botched-flood-response\/","title":{"rendered":"Yoon Suk-yeol finds his approval rating floor, despite botched flood response"},"content":{"rendered":"
After free-falling for weeks, Yoon Suk-yeol\u2019s approval rate may have finally hit bottom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Last week started out with controversy, as Yoon <\/span>snubbed Nancy Pelosi<\/span><\/a> during her visit to Korea, and ended in tragedy, with <\/span>16 confirmed dead or missing<\/span><\/a> in flooding that hit Seoul. And yet, Yoon\u2019s approval rate remained steady at 25% in <\/span>Gallup Korea polling<\/span><\/a>, virtually unchanged from 24% last week.<\/span><\/p>\n The lack of downward movement in his approval rate is surprising given the high-profile nature of both events and the amount of criticism directed at the president in each case. His initial response to the flooding was especially striking: Yoon said he was <\/span>trapped<\/span><\/a> in his home due to flooding and was thus unable to make it to the presidential office at Yongsan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The result was that during the first emergency of his term, Yoon did not initially appear in a single photo leading the emergency disaster response. While this apparently did not hurt his approval rate, it was certainly a missed opportunity for him to appear presidential and begin to repair those numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n But it also indicates Yoon has likely found his approval ratings floor. Majorities of all age cohorts 18-69 already disapprove of his job performance, and those 70 and older are nearly evenly split. Even among his own party, just 55% say they approve of his performance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Normally, those support rates would be in the 70s. Given the severity of the flooding and the terrible optics of his response, this suggests that all those that would voice disapproval of his job performance are already doing so.<\/span><\/p>\n But there is unlikely to be a quick turnaround in those numbers.<\/span><\/p>\n In particular, the intensity with which South Koreans disapprove of Yoon\u2019s job performance is now very high. In the first week of June, polling by the <\/span>National Barometer Survey (NBS)<\/span><\/a> found that 12 percent of respondents strongly disapproved of Yoon\u2019s job performance. By the fifth week of July, that number was 35 percent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n