Yoon leads Lee by 2 percentage points or less: polls

SEOUL, Feb. 24 (Yonhap) -- Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol is leading his ruling party rival Lee Jae-myung by 2 percentage points or less, two polls showed Thursday.

Yoon of the conservative People Power Party earned 41.9 percent support against Lee of the liberal Democratic Party's 40.5 percent, according to a Realmeter survey of 2,038 adults conducted from Sunday to Wednesday.

Lee gained 1.8 percentage points from last week, while Yoon lost 1 point, reducing their gap from 4.2 points to 1.4 points, which was within the margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 points at a 95 percent confidence level.

Ahn Cheol-soo of the minor opposition People's Party came in third with 6.8 percent, while Sim Sang-jeung of the minor progressive Justice Party posted 2.6 percent.

Asked which candidate is likely to win the March 9 election, 48.4 percent chose Yoon, while 43.2 percent picked Lee.

In a survey by Embrain Public, Kstat Research, Korea Research and Hankook Research, Yoon led Lee 39 percent to 37 percent.

Yoon lost 1 percentage point from the previous survey, while Lee gained 6 points, reducing their gap from 9 points to 2 points, which was also within the margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 points at a 95 percent confidence level.

Ahn posted 9 percent, while Sim posted 3 percent.

Asked which candidate is like to win, 48 percent picked Yoon, while 37 percent chose Lee.

The survey was conducted on 1,004 adults from Monday to Wednesday.

hague@yna.co.kr
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