SEOUL: Lee Jae-myung is still the frontrunner in South Korea’s presidential race, but what once looked like a landslide victory has turned into a much closer contest.

Just a few weeks ago, the left-leaning opposition candidate appeared almost certain to win, after the chaotic downfall of conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached and ousted from office following a failed attempt to impose martial law. That left his party fractured and in disarray.

But the most recent polls before the final week of the campaign show Lee’s lead over the ruling party’s candidate Kim Moon-soo has narrowed. That’s an indication some voters aren’t really buying Lee’s attempts to shift toward the political centre. It’s also a clear reminder that no matter who wins on June 3, they’ll face the tough task of leading a deeply fractured nation.

That divide is especially apparent in Daejeon, a high-tech city of 1.5 million people that is home to South Korea’s leading research institutes. It’s also a bellwether region in national politics. In the 2022 presidential election, voters here supported Yoon of the People Power Party. Just two years later during parliamentary elections, they flipped in favour of Lee’s Democratic Party.

Now, both Lee and Kim are zeroing in on Daejeon as a must-win battleground. For Lee, keeping those Democratic Party voters on his side is critical, but it’s no easy feat.

"No one can be indifferent to what happened with the martial law and the state of the economy,” said Han Jae-oh, a 23-year-old college student in Daejeon. "But Lee just has too many controversies surrounding his personal life.”

Han says he would vote for a candidate who prioritises tackling the country’s demographic crisis and reforming its drying pension fund. Han believes Kim would be better than Lee at the job.

Polls taken before the last week of the campaign also show that restoring faith in the political process and fixing the economy are among the top concerns for voters.

Asia’s fourth-largest economy is a key player in supply chains, providing the world with everything from the latest smartphones and autos to heavyweight ships and cutting-edge chips. But the aftermath of Yoon’s shock move has pushed the economy back into reverse just as US President Donald Trump tore up the global trade playbook with his wave of tariffs.

The new leader will need a strategy for dealing with Trump and a plan for future growth. But for voters in Daejeon tackling the economy means improving everyday livelihoods and people’s access to affordable housing and rewarding jobs, not just protecting the export sector.

Lee has been leading the presidential race since the get-go while the conservatives squabbled over who should stand for them. In the end the rank-and-file membership of the PPP chose rightwinger Kim as their candidate, prevailing over the leadership’s efforts to install a more centrist alternative.

Kim initially did little to distance himself from Yoon’s actions. He avoided any comments that looked like an apology for Yoon’s martial law decree and the chaos it triggered. His detractors labeled him an avatar of the former president.

But Kim, a former labor activist like Lee, has now apologised and has garnered more traction than expected by toning down his policies in the same way as his main rival.

In fact, many of their policies look very similar: Constitutional reform to allow two-term presidencies, a stimulus package of 30 trillion won (US$22 billion) for the economy, fostering growth in the artificial intelligence sector through a 100 trillion won fund, increasing the supply of housing and enhancing corporate efficiency.

The difference is Lee sees the government taking the key role in carrying out his objectives through spending and regulation, while Kim sees deregulation and the private sector as the main policy levers.

There’s a wider gap on some other policies. Lee wants to try shortening the working week, closing down coal-fired power stations over time and speaking with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. Kim Moon-soo wants to lower taxation, build more nuclear power plants and push for NATO-like shared coordination of nuclear resources with the US.

For Han Ju-hui, a 34-year-old former nurse, only Lee can provide a way forward. She swapped her hospital uniform for a blue campaign outfit to back her preferred candidate.

"Nobody believes it, but I pretty much timed the departure from my previous job to do this,” Han said as she walked around one of Daejeon’s many university campuses, canvassing for him.

Han believes Lee is the right person to ensure the country keeps up with the ever intensifying global AI race. She also favoured the Democratic Party in the last parliamentary election.

"I was awestruck by his strong determination to get things done when he was governor of Gyeonggi Province,” Han said, referring to Lee’s leadership of the region surrounding Seoul.

But, as the other Han, the Daejeon student, indicated, Lee is also one of the more polarising figures in the country’s political landscape with a fervent base of supporters on the left and a large block of opponents in the conservative camp.

Lee has been clouded by scandals in his personal life and multiple legal troubles surrounding accusations over aiding private land developers, misusing public funds and infringing election law in the past. He has denied any wrongdoing and called the legal proceedings against him politically motivated.

"I never really liked Lee Jae-myung. He’s always been surrounded by controversies, you know, the legal cases and all that,” said Jang, a 73-year-old who mills spices for restaurants in Daejeon and asked to be identified only by his last name for fear of reprisal. "At the same time, we can’t go with Kim this time. He shouldn’t be the one standing after Yoon made this whole mess.”

Jang acknowledges that many in Daejeon, like him, have changed party allegiance over the years. Jang, who voted for Lee in the 2022 election, says people around him have switched their support following the martial law decree.

The botched decree hit his bottom line, too, he says. His daily sales dropped almost a quarter from around 200,000 won (US$144) on average to 150,000 won. "People don’t come out and spend money when politics is not doing well,” he said. "I know the economy isn’t good because my regulars who would come three times a week now only come twice.”

The Bank of Korea gave an indication of how the picture for the economy has darkened when it almost halved its growth forecast for this year to 0.8 per cent from its view just three months ago. That shows how Trump’s tariffs and political uncertainty are weighing on an economy that already shrank in the first quarter.

Among Kim supporters, some remain optimistic he can still pull off a come-from-behind victory.

"I was worried going into this campaign, but it’s not as bad as I thought,” said Yang Hong-kyu, a 60-year-old lawyer and campaigner for the PPP.

Yang was among dozens of campaign staff who were dancing and chanting under a banner of their rival Lee in Daejeon, a symbolic demonstration that they won’t be daunted or overshadowed by the frontrunner’s lead.

Yang’s optimism may not be unfounded. The opinion polls conducted before May 28 showed a high level of volatility in support rate, especially in the central region, with some indicating that more voters there, including Daejeon, favor Kim over Lee.

Still, the key impediment to Kim’s campaign is the separate candidature of former PPP leader, Lee Jun-seok. Now running on the minor Reform Party ticket, he is likely to play the spoiler role for the conservative vote. In one of the polls his support and Kim’s combined was larger than Lee Jae-myung’s.

But the 40-year-old Lee Jun-seok, who voted for Yoon’s impeachment, has vowed to stay in the race till the end as he tries to build his credentials as the best placed leader of the conservatives to resonate with a wider and younger demographic going forward.

That leaves Lee Jae-myung in pole position for Tuesday’s (June 3) election.

Heo Jin-jae, director of public opinion at Gallup Korea, says the Democratic Party’s Lee appears almost certain to clinch victory unless he makes a mistake serious enough to shake up the public sentiment. Heo has been following South Korea’s presidential elections since 1992.

Analysts also point out that the Democratic Party’s position in parliament may also sway the undecided.

Should the Democratic Party’s Lee win, he would be backed by the commanding majority the party already has in parliament. That means he would see few of the hurdles that Yoon faced in the legislative body. But for Kim, he would be facing resistance in the National Assembly from Day 1 as a president lacking that majority.

"The liberals would become a ruling party that can do whatever it wants without compromise,” Heo said, referring to a potential win that might end up fueling further political polarisation in the nation.

Voting in a president who won’t be reined in by parliament may be too much of a concern for many Koreans still shocked by the martial law debacle. But the alternative is a candidate from the party Yoon represented, with the likelihood of more gridlock in parliament.

For many Koreans this election is shaping up to be a case of choosing the least bad option.

"This will be a historic vote that decides whether we move forward toward the future and become a normal nation again,” Lee said at a rally in Bucheon near Seoul. "Who you like or dislike is a secondary question.” - Bloomberg