South Korean (early) presidential election (9 May 2017)

[jaichind]

It will be Moon vs Ahn.  Moon should have the edge but the old Saenuri (now Liberal) vote might vote tactically for Ahn.  The Liberal candidate is from Gyeongsang which is good at getting the core Saenuri vote but will most likely lose for it all the marginal Saenuri voters.

[jaichind]

The latest poll from Korea Research has Moon 39 Ahn 32 Hong (Liberal) 9 so Ahn is catching up fast.  I suspect that the Liberal are under-polling this election cycle.  The old Saenuri base is not gone but just gone underground for a while although this election will vote tactically.

[jaichind]

I know the party system is in flux, with the cuckoo banana bird scandal, but can someone give me a rough idea of how the major demographics vote?

Most regionally based.  Jeolla always vote center-left (like 90-10) while Yeongnam always vote center-right (like 70-30.)  Other regions lean center-right with Greater Seoul tend to be a swing district.  Third parties (progressive or liberal parties) tend to do well in Greater Seoul as well aside from the traditional center-right and center-left mainstream parties.

[jaichind]

I know the party system is in flux, with the cuckoo banana bird scandal, but can someone give me a rough idea of how the major demographics vote?

Most regionally based.  Jeolla always vote center-left (like 90-10) while Yeongnam always vote center-right (like 70-30.)  Other regions lean center-right with Greater Seoul tend to be a swing district.  Third parties (progressive or liberal parties) tend to do well in Greater Seoul as well aside from the traditional center-right and center-left mainstream parties.

Didn't this pattern break in the 2014 legislative elections? Or is it expected to be business as usual, back to normal in the presidential race?

EDIT: How much of the old Saenuri vote is tactically backing Ahn to prevent a Moon victory? Also, it seems like Ahn is much likelier than Hong to make the runoff with Moon and the conventional wisdom is that right-wing voters would back him to prevent a Moon victory. Is Ahn favored now? Also, how much of Ahn's support is coming from the old leftist strongholds in Jeolla?

You mean 2016? Any the answer is not really.  People's Party(PP) (Ahn's party) and Democratic Party (DPK) were the center-left parties while Saenuri was the center-right party.  As expected Saenuri was nowhere in Jeolla  where PP and DPK split the vote while  Saenuri  over performed in  Yeongnam.  One of the theory I had about why PP and DPK did well was that neither was seen as "The Jeolla Party" since they split the vote there. There are significant negativity toward Jeolla from the rest of ROK, especially in non-Soeul ROK. 

[jaichind]

Gallup Korea poll

Moon   38
Ahn     35
Hong     7

[jaichind]

It seems that the Saenuri (now Liberal) candidate is polling better which is deadly for Ahn's chance since only a total Saenuri (now Liberal) collapse would give Ahn a chance.

[jaichind]

Japanese political blog has polling average curves between Moon (Blue) Ahn (Green) and Hong (Red)

 

Clearly, the Ahn surge is gone and Hong vote holding up.  Looks like Moon is headed for a victory.

The two minor candidates are

Center-Left Justice Party Sim (Yellow) and Center-Right Bareun Party Yoo (Light Blue)

[jaichind]

Gallup

Moon   40
Ahn     24
Hong    12


Realmeter

Moon   44.4
Ahn     22.8
Hong    13

Hong seems to be surging as some of the old Saenuri Party vote comes back as Ahn falls further behind.  

Updated chart

[jaichind]

KSOI

Moon   41.4
Ahn     22.1
Hong   16.6


Realmeter

Moon   42.6
Ahn     20.9
Hong   16.7

Ahn continues to fall as Hong surge continues.  Moon mostly holding steady

[jaichind]

Exit polls will be out in 8 min.  Looks like turnout is around 75.1%

[jaichind]

Exit polls

Moon  41,4
Ahn   21.8
Hong  23.3

[jaichind]

Hong beat the odds and came in second.  The old  Saenuri vote is down but not out and if and when Moon stumbles will come back.

[jaichind]

Complete Exit polls

Moon  41.4  (Center-Left Democratic party)
Hong  23.3  (Center-right Liberty Party (has both pro- and anti- Park factions, Hong is anti-Park)
Ahn   21.8  (Centrist People's party)
Yoo     7.1   (Conservative Bareun party (anti-Park))
Sim     5.9   (Leftist Justice party)

[jaichind]

The center-right will spend the next few years working out how to fuse the pro- and ant- Park factions into a single unified party which will involve merging Liberal Party and Bareun Party.  That gives Moon a few years without a real center-right opposition.  But once the center-right get their act together and if and when Moon stumbles they will be back as a political force, most likely by the next election in 2022.

[jaichind]

It seems that Park, who is in jail, is cut off from TV so she does not even, right now, know the results of the exit polls.  She will be allowed to read the papers tomorrow and learn that Moon won in a landslide.

[jaichind]

Any maps fo result?

http://info.nec.go.kr/

But it is all in Korean.  Of course the voting patterns are regional based in ROK so it is easy to work out who got what as the results come in.

[jaichind]

Turnout adjusted to 77.2%

[jaichind]

Exit polls by age.  Moon (Blue) very strong in the 20s and 30s while Hong (Red) won 60s and 70+

[jaichind]

Exit polls by region.  Hong won the Southeast Gyeongsang    and Daegu regions and Moon won everything else.  Such is the strength of the Moon landslide that the old center-right regions of Busan and Ulsan in the Southeast as well as Gangwon in the Northeast went Moon as well.  Hong beaten into third place in Seoul as expected.

In 1997 and 2002 when the center-right narrowly lost the map looked like


Where the center-right GNP won Busan, Ulsan, and Gangwon

Hong getting low single digits in Jeolla is just funny to look at.  In Jeolla the center-right usually gets around 10% but now with the center-right vote split and dispirited Hong is down to around 2%.

[jaichind]

So far on a regional basis Hong is exceeding exit polls.  Given the Park embarrassment affect this does not surprise me.

[jaichind]

So far Hong is doing about what exit poll suggested in old Center-Right strongholds in the Southeast and Northeast.  It is in Great Soeul areas where he is doing 3%-4% so far better than exit polls.  If there is a shy Hong affect it would be in the urban areas.  This seems to be panning out so far.

[jaichind]

As more votes comes it in seems Hong is beating exit polls across the board.

[jaichind]

Uh, is there any chance Hong could actually win? IIRC he's an admitted date rapist.

No way.  He is too far behind in Greater Soeul to win.  But will most likely win a vote share 2%-3% higher than the exit polls (which is a lot better than polls last few days) suggest which is a sort of a personal victory.

[jaichind]

Hong slowly converging toward exit polls in Greater Soeul even though he is still over performing there by around 2%-3%

[jaichind]

english map!
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/election/index.html

So... uh... what's going on with the Southwest (North & South Jeolla Provence and Gwangju)? Hong Joon-pyo is in a pretty comfortable second place outside of that area, but is in fourth in that area (fifth in Geangju). For someone unfamiliar with South Korean politics, what is going on down there?

That is the Southwest Jeolla area.  This is an area that is often looked down upon by other regions, especially from the Southeast and Northeast ROK.  The Park regime in the 1960s and 1970s has was made up of people outside of  Jeolla who always got the short end of the stick.  Since the ROK center-right are political decedents of the Park regime  Jeolla always vote 90-10 anti-Right.