Fact Check: President Yoon Suk Yeol's Approval Rating Did NOT Exceed 40 Percent After Impeachment In 2024

2022 Rating

Did President Yoon Suk Yeol's approval rating increase by 10.1 percent in 2024, exceeding 40 percent, after he was impeached? No, that's not true. Although a video circulating on social media in January 2025 claimed that President Yoon's approval rating rose 10.1 percent in two months to 40.3 percent, the quoted rating was from a survey conducted between December 26 and 27, 2022.

The claim appeared in a TikTok video (archived here) published on January 5, 2025, under the title, "윤석열 대통령 지지율 40% 돌파! 탄핵이후 지지율 오르는 상황 본적 있습니까? 국민들이 깨어나고 있다는 증거입니다," translated from Korean into English by Lead Stories staff as "President Yoon Suk Yeol's approval rating exceeds 40 percent! Have you ever seen a president's approval rating rise after impeachment? This is proof that people are becoming aware."

The headline of the screenshotted article shown in the video reads, as translated from Korean into English:

President Yoon's Approval Rating is 40.3%, Rose 10.1% in Two Months.

This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:

(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Jan 10 01:47:00 2025 UTC)

The screenshotted headline in the video is originally from a Chosun Ilbo article (archived here) published on January 2, 2023, and updated on January 8, 2024. President Yoon was inaugurated as the 20th President of South Korea on May 10, 2022 (archived here). Chosun Ilbo stated they commissioned an opinion poll company, Case Stat Research, for the 2023 New Year's special poll on the newly inaugurated president. The survey was conducted from December 26 to 27, 2022, when President Yoon's approval rating was 40.3 percent. However, 51.8 percent of the respondents said he was "doing poorly."

Similarly, a Gallup opinion poll showed President Yoon's approval rating as 37 percent in the first week of January 2023, while 54 percent of the respondents gave a negative evaluation (archived here). Real Meter, another polling company, also released an opinion poll on December 9, 2024, which conducted a two-month survey of President Yoon (archived here). The poll revealed that 79.2 percent of around 1,000 respondents disapproved of President Yoon, and his approval rating was down to 17.3 percent within the first week of December 2024, after he declared martial law. Gallup also released a comprehensive opinion poll of President Yoon on December 27, 2024 (archived here). The survey showed a year-long nationwide approval rating of President Yoon in 2024: According to Gallup's monthly presidential performance evaluation, (archived here), President Yoon's approval rating never surpassed 40 percent in 2024 and drastically declined to 13 percent in December (due to Yoon's martial law announcement) (archived here).