Lee Jae-myung Declared Winner of the 21st Presidential Election in South Korea

On June 3, 2025, the 21st presidential election in South Korea saw the Democratic Party's Lee Jae-myung emerge as the likely winner, according to reports from major broadcasters KBS, MBC, and SBS. As of 11:42 PM, the Central Election Management Commission reported a vote count of 41.27%, with Lee Jae-myung receiving 48.89% of the votes, while Kim Moon-soo of the People Power Party garnered 42.77%. Other candidates included Lee Jun-seok of the Reform Party with 7.29% and Kwon Young-guk of the Democratic Labor Party with 0.92%.

Initially, Kim led the count, but by the time the count reached 15%, Lee had overtaken him with 46.77% compared to Kim's 45.02%. The exit polls conducted by KBS, MBC, and SBS predicted that Lee would secure 51.7% of the votes, while Kim was expected to receive 39.3%, and Lee Jun-seok 7.7%.

The exit poll was conducted by the Joint Prediction Survey Committee (KEP), which surveyed 80,146 voters across 325 polling stations, with a margin of error of ±0.8% at a 95% confidence level. The commission anticipates that a clearer picture of the election results will emerge after 70-80% of the votes are counted, with counting expected to continue into the morning of June 4.

The preliminary voter turnout for this election was reported at 79.4%, marking the highest turnout in 28 years. Out of 44,391,871 registered voters, 35,524,416 participated, surpassing the final turnout of 77.1% in the 2022 election and 77.2% in the 2017 election.