Live Updates: South Korea’s Opposition Leader Likely to Be Next President, Exit Poll Shows

The exit poll predicted that Mr. Lee, the candidate for the Democratic Party, the country’s largest, would win by a margin of 12 percentage points. The poll asked 80,000 people whom they voted for, and 51.7 percent of them said they chose Mr. Lee. That compared with 39.3 percent for his main rival, Kim Moon-soo, who represents the People Power Party. Lee Jun-seok, a minor-party candidate, won 7.7 percent, according to the poll.

The results of the exit poll were announced shortly after voting concluded at 8 p.m. local time. In recent decades, exit polls have correctly predicted the winners of South Korean presidential elections.

The winner takes office the moment the National Election Commission declares one. An announcement is expected Wednesday morning local time. If elected, Mr. Lee would take office as one of the most powerful South Korean presidents in recent decades. His party also holds a majority in the National Assembly, the legislature.

South Koreans turned out in large numbers to vote in an election whose winner will face daunting challenges, including trying to fix a sputtering domestic economy and navigating tensions between the United States, a key ally, and China.

Mr. Lee has pledged to heal his deeply polarized country and boost its economy. He has also championed more balanced diplomacy, promising to mend strained relations with ​China and North Korea while maintaining the alliance with the United States as the bedrock of national security.

Mr. Kim has said that if he wins, he is likely to continue Mr. Yoon’s foreign policy, which focused on strengthening ties with the United States and Japan at the cost of antagonizing North Korea and China.

If Mr. Lee wins, analysts say, uncertainty will hang over his leadership. He has been standing trial on several criminal charges that he has called politically motivated. There is a dispute over whether the trials should be suspended until after his five-year term if he takes office.

Here’s what else to know:

• Voter participation: Turnout surpassed 79 percent, according to the National Election Commission, the highest turnout since 1997.

• Yoon’s impeachment: After his imposition of martial law, Mr. Yoon was impeached by the Assembly​ and in April was formally expelled from office by the Constitutional Court, opening the way for Tuesday’s election.

• Deep divisions: South ​Koreans are more divided than ever. All candidates had called for “national unity,” recognizing a deepening political polarization as one of the biggest challenges the country faces. But during the campaign, they indulged in ​stoking fear and indignation against each other.

The winner of the election is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday at a truncated inauguration ceremony in the National Assembly.

Lee Jae-myung has been standing trial on several criminal charges that he said were politically motivated. There is a dispute over whether the trials should continue if he wins the election or should be suspended until after his five-year term. Even if he wins the presidency, analysts say uncertainty will hang over Mr. Lee’s leadership until the dispute is resolved, probably by a decision from the Constitutional Court.

In the exit poll by the KBS, MBC and SBS TV stations, 51.7 percent of the respondents said they chose Mr. Lee, the candidate of the centrist Democratic Party. Kim Moon-soo, who represented the right-wing People Power Party, won 39.3 percent, and Lee Jun-seok, a minor-party candidate, 7.7 percent.

June 3, 2025, 5:55 a.m. ET

Jin Yu Young

Reporting from Seoul

Several South Korean celebrities have taken part in the trend. Actress Park Bo-young and several members of the boy band ATEEZ were among some who uploaded images of their hands or pieces of paper with the red stamp to social media.

June 3, 2025, 4:14 a.m. ET

Jin Yu Young

Reporting from Seoul

South Korea has over 44 million eligible voters. Around 34 percent of them cast their votes last week, according to the National Election Commission.

President Trump’s tariffs on cars, steel and other goods have since hit the country’s export industry hard, darkening the economic outlook. South Korea’s central bank, which has been cutting interest rates to shore up the economy, recently slashed its forecast for growth this year, to below 1 percent.

“We believe the worst will have passed with the election and the removal of political uncertainty domestically,” Kathleen Oh, an economist at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a research note. The two main candidates both plan to spend more to shore up the economy. Jin Choi of HSBC estimates that such a stimulus could add a small but much-needed boost to the country’s growth rate, supporting stocks and the currency.

Since 1990, “market performance is positive during the first year of a new administration on average,” analysts at Goldman Sachs noted. They raised their forecast for the benchmark Kospi index, implying a 9 percent rise over the coming year, driven by the removal of a “political overhang.” They also said that the South Korean won was likely to strengthen, regardless of the election outcome, because of “declines in policy uncertainties.”

South Korea’s stock market has bounced back from its fall after Mr. Yoon imposed martial law. Still, the Kospi index is only back to where it traded at the beginning of last year, while indexes in China and Japan have posted double-digit percentage gains over the same period. Relative to other markets, Korean stocks continue to trade at a significant discount to their underlying earnings, which analysts attribute to poor corporate governance and a lack of shareholder rights.

Both leading candidates have pledged to make changes to address the issues behind the “Korea discount,” the Goldman analysts added, but whoever takes over faces this and many other challenges at home and abroad, from uniting a deeply divided electorate to navigating a global trade war.

June 3, 2025, 2:50 a.m. ET

Jin Yu Young

Reporting from Seoul

Yoon left the conservative People Power Party last month, after its leaders called for his exit to increase the chances their candidate, Kim Moon-soo, would win. Some of the party’s lawmakers said ties to the former president would diminish public faith in the party.

“My one thought on this election is disgust,” said An Ye-young, 20, a college student. She joined the demonstrations again Mr. Yoon in December, her first time as a protester.

“It’s a feast with nothing to eat,” she said, speaking over the weekend after casting her ballot early.

For many young South Koreans, the candidates running on Tuesday are not addressing some of their key issues: youth unemployment, pension reform, and discrimination and abuse against women.

Young people in South Korea face a tough job market. The unemployment rate among people 15 to 29 rose to a four-year high of 6.8 percent in the first quarter of this year.

South Korea’s low birthrate has also fueled concerns that its $800 billion-plus national pension fund could be depleted if a growing number of people depend on it while contributions dwindle.

And the country has some of highest rates of gender-based discrimination in the developed world, along with rampant online sexual abuse that domestic legislation has done little to stop. Many South Korean women want the country made safer and fairer for them, but they say their concerns take a back seat in elections, including this one.

That doesn’t mean young South Koreans are staying home on Tuesday, though. Several young protesters said in recent interviews that they planned to vote against Mr. Yoon’s People Power Party in an effort to stop it from regaining power.

For months after Mr. Yoon’s failed martial law declaration, some in the party defended him by trying to block his impeachment, prevent his arrest and urge the Constitutional Court to reject a motion to end his term. Young people haven’t forgotten.

Kim Yoon-ji, 24, said she wished the presidential candidates had promoted policies to protect women. She cited government data showing that most victims of violent crimes in South Korea are female.

Lee Jae-myung, the centrist front-runner, has often hesitated to directly address women’s issues. Policies that seek to help women are unpopular among many young South Korean men who view such legislation as discriminatory against them.

But Ms. Kim, who attended her first political protest last year, said she saw a vote for Mr. Lee as a vote against the People Power Party.

“The party that caused the martial law situation can’t regain power again,” she said.

Goh Hee-sung, another new protester, said he had refused to vote for Mr. Lee out of fear that electing him would give too much power to his Democratic Party, which already controls the country’s legislature.

But even though Mr. Goh, 24, voted for Mr. Yoon in the 2022 presidential election, he said that he couldn’t bring himself to support the party’s candidate in this election, Kim Moon-soo. He said he didn’t want to support the party that had defended Mr. Yoon after his martial law declaration.

So Mr. Goh voted for a third-party candidate, Lee Jun-seok of the conservative Reform Party. He said he hoped Mr. Lee, the youngest on the ballot at 40, would bring the changes he felt were necessary.

“The root of the problem is the deeply entrenched two-party politics,” Mr. Goh added.

Lee Suyoon, 21, who voted for Lee Jae-myung in 2022 and joined anti-Yoon demonstrations in December, said she felt similarly torn.

“After seeing the candidates’ campaign promises and the presidential debate, there is no candidate who perfectly satisfies what I want in a president,” she said.

She was leaning toward voting for Lee Jun-seok, she said, but still undecided.