A Political Report Card, One Year In

So here's the thing about South Korean local elections — they're almost never just about local issues. And the June 3, 2026 elections were about as far from a quiet municipal vote as you can get. Held exactly one year to the day since President Lee Jae Myung took office, these elections were widely framed as the country's first real nationwide referendum on his administration. And if the exit polls are anything to go by, voters gave him a passing grade — with room to spare.

The ruling Democratic Party (DP) was projected to win at least 10 of the 16 metropolitan mayoral and gubernatorial posts up for grabs, according to a JTBC exit poll. A separate exit poll conducted jointly by the major broadcasters KBS, MBC, and SBS put that number even higher, at 11 out of 16. Both polls agreed on one thing: the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) was leading in just a single race — the governorship of North Gyeongsang Province, a traditional conservative stronghold in the southeast.

To put that in perspective, the last time South Korea held local elections — in 2022, shortly after then-President Yoon Suk Yeol took office — the PPP had swept 12 out of 17 major positions. The political tide has turned dramatically since then, and the reasons are not hard to find.

The Shadow of Yoon Suk Yeol

You really cannot understand these election results without understanding what happened in December 2024. Former President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law in a move that stunned the country and the world, only for it to collapse within hours in the face of a defiant National Assembly. Yoon was subsequently removed from office and, in February 2026, sentenced to life imprisonment by a district court for his failed power grab. Lee Jae Myung won the resulting snap presidential election and has governed since on a platform of reform and democratic restoration.

Throughout their campaign, the DP leaned hard into this narrative, urging voters to deliver a "stern judgment" on what the party called the "remnants" of Yoon's "insurrectionist forces." The PPP, for its part, has spent the past year trying to rebuild a conservative coalition badly fractured by the scandal — and early results suggest that effort has a long way to go.

Key Races to Watch

What's really interesting is where the DP's projected wins are coming from. These aren't just safe liberal districts — the party appears to have made inroads in cities and provinces that have long been considered competitive.

Seoul

In the capital, DP candidate Chong Won-o was projected to defeat incumbent Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon of the PPP with 53.5 percent of the vote against Oh's 42.9 percent, according to the JTBC poll. Winning Seoul is a massive symbolic and strategic prize — the city of roughly 10 million people is the heart of Korean political life.

Gyeonggi Province

Even more striking is the race in Gyeonggi Province, the sprawling region that surrounds Seoul and is home to tens of millions of residents. Veteran DP politician Choo Mi-ae was leading by a landslide margin — 60.4 percent to the PPP's Yang Hyang-ja at just 34.1 percent. If that result holds, Choo would make history as the first woman ever to lead a provincial government in South Korea. The capital region as a whole — Seoul plus Gyeonggi — houses roughly half the country's entire population, so these races carry enormous political weight.

Busan

Down in Busan, South Korea's second-largest city and a port metropolis in the southeast, DP candidate Jeon Jae-soo was projected to win with 53.9 percent, beating PPP incumbent Park Heong-joon. Busan has historically leaned conservative, making this a potentially significant flip if the numbers hold.

The Parliamentary By-Elections: A Different Story

Alongside the local elections, 14 parliamentary seats were also up for grabs in by-elections — and those races were considerably more unpredictable. Of the 14 seats at stake, 13 had previously been held by the ruling DP, so the stakes were high for the party to hold its ground.

Exit polls were only conducted in two of the most closely watched by-election constituencies. In Busan's Buk-A district, the polls actually split. JTBC projected independent candidate Han Dong-hoon — a former leader of the PPP who is now running without a party — to win with 48.1 percent. The KBS-MBC-SBS poll told a different story, projecting the DP's Ha Jung-woo to edge ahead with 42.6 percent. Ha previously served as a presidential secretary to Lee Jae Myung, overseeing artificial intelligence policy.

Over in Pyeongtaek-B, the picture was equally murky. KBS-MBC-SBS projected Cho Kuk — the leader of the smaller liberal Rebuilding Korea Party — to win by a razor-thin margin of just half a percentage point over the PPP's candidate, with the DP's own candidate close behind. JTBC, however, flipped the order and had the DP's Kim Yong-nam out in front. What makes this race matter beyond its numbers is who's running in it: both Han Dong-hoon and Cho Kuk are widely discussed as potential presidential contenders, so a National Assembly seat would give either man a meaningful political platform going forward.

A Ballot Shortage Clouds the Day

Now, here's where things got complicated. Election day itself was marred by an incident that South Korea has simply never seen before: a ballot shortage. Fourteen polling stations across Seoul — concentrated largely in the Songpa-gu district, with one each in Gangnam-gu and Gwangjin-gu — ran out of ballots, forcing the temporary suspension of voting. Some voters reportedly left without casting their ballots.

The National Election Commission (NEC) acknowledged the shortfall and issued a public apology, convening an emergency midnight meeting to discuss its response. One affected polling station in Songpa Ward extended its voting hours all the way to 10 p.m. to compensate.

The presidential office, known as Cheong Wa Dae, weighed in through senior spokesperson Kang Yu-jung, who issued a pointed statement:

"As a constitutional institution tasked with guaranteeing the people's right to political participation, we ask the National Election Commission to take responsible measures to ensure there are no disruptions to some residents' exercise of voting rights and to ballot-counting management."

The PPP moved quickly to turn the incident into a political issue. Party officials marched to NEC headquarters late Wednesday night to protest, demanding a complete halt to vote counting and calling for the election in affected areas to be re-run. The party also threatened to withdraw all of its election observers and said it planned to file a lawsuit to invalidate the results. Whether these challenges gain any legal traction remains to be seen, but the ballot shortage controversy adds a complicated subplot to what had otherwise appeared to be a relatively clean Democratic sweep.

What This All Means

If the projected results hold through the final count — winners were expected to emerge around midnight, with tight races potentially stretching into Thursday morning — the implications for South Korean politics are significant on several levels.

  • President Lee Jae Myung enters his second year in office with a strengthened democratic mandate, backed by both his parliamentary majority and now, potentially, a majority of the country's key local governments.
  • The DP would be well-positioned to accelerate its legislative reform agenda without as much pushback from opposition-controlled local governments.
  • The PPP faces an increasingly urgent identity crisis. The party that governed the country just two years ago is now fighting for relevance, with internal divisions and the long shadow of Yoon's martial law disaster still hanging over it.
  • The by-election results, particularly in Busan and Pyeongtaek, will shape the next generation of presidential politics — and whether figures like Han Dong-hoon and Cho Kuk can build the platforms they need to mount serious future bids.

South Korea's political landscape has shifted dramatically in the span of just a few years. What these elections show is that the shift appears to be deepening — and the ballot shortage controversy, while serious and deserving of accountability, is unlikely to change that fundamental picture.

This article is based on reports from Yonhap News, Koreaherald, JoongAng Ilbo.