Gone quiet · last update Sep 22, 2026 / South Korea
South Korea's 2025 snap election won by Lee Jae-myung
Overview · reviewed October 28, 2026
South Korea elected opposition leader Lee Jae-myung as president on June 3, 2025, in a held after the Constitutional Court removed President Yoon Suk Yeol over his brief declaration of martial law.[1][2]Lee won about 51.7% of the vote in exit polls to conservative Kim Moon Soo's 39.3% and was sworn in the next day.[3][2] The crisis that led to the vote is followed in its own arc.
Follow this story to see new developments when you return.
Lee won about 51.7% of the vote in exit polls to conservative Kim Moon Soo's 39.3% and was sworn in the next day.[3][2] The crisis that led to the vote is followed in its own arc.
Coverage over time
Share of tracked outlets · weekly (UTC)
16%0%
Apr 20252026this week
LeftCenterRightLighter bar: this week so far
Each bar is the share of the outlets on our Left / Center / Right rating scale that we tracked publishing that week which carried reporting on this story, split by the outlets' ratings. We track more outlets now than in the archive, so a share keeps earlier and later weeks comparable. An outlet counts once a week however much it published, and outlets in one ownership or syndication group count as one on each side they appear on. A rating describes the outlet, not the report. A gap means no such reports were collected that week, not that nothing was reported anywhere. Weeks run Monday to Sunday in UTC, so a report published on a Sunday evening in US Eastern time counts in the next week. 4 more outlets off the scale (not rated, or outside the left-right graphs) also reported; they are not in this chart. See them.
Weekly counts, outlets and reports (6 weeks with coverage)
Outlets on the rating scale that carried this story each week, of the outlets tracked that week, newest first
The government set the election for June 3 after Yoon's removal,[4] and Lee, widely seen as the front-runner, announced his bid in April.[5] As president he vowed to restart talks with North Korea and strengthen ties with the US and Japan,[6] met President Donald Trump at the White House in August,[7] and in 2026 called for a step-by-step approach to North Korea's nuclear disarmament.[8]
