Kim Min-seok Takes Combined Lead in Gangwon and TK Primaries... Ultra-Tight Race with Jeong Cheong-rae

[Anchor]

In the fourth regional primary to elect the Democratic Party's new leadership, candidate Kim Min-seok placed first in the rank-and-file member votes for Gangwon Province and North Gyeongsang Province, while candidate Jeong Cheong-rae took first place in Daegu. With the cumulative vote gap standing at just over one percentage point, the two candidates are locked in an ultra-tight race.

Reporter Ha Jeongyeon has the details.

[Reporter]

According to the combined results of the Democratic Party's regional primary rank-and-file member votes for Gangwon, Daegu, and North Gyeongsang announced this evening (August 9), party leadership candidate Kim Min-seok ranked first with 48.54 percent of the vote.

Candidate Jeong Cheong-rae followed in second place with 44.40 percent, and candidate Song Young-gil placed third with 7.06 percent.

However, while Kim secured first place in Gangwon and North Gyeongsang, Jeong took the top spot in Daegu.

Adding today's results to the previous regional primaries held in Chungcheong, Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam, Jeju, and Incheon, the margin between Kim and Jeong remains extremely tight at around 3,000 votes, or roughly 1.5 percentage points in vote share.

The cumulative rank-and-file member voting results for supreme council member candidates showed Choi Min-hee, Park Sun-won, Han Min-su, Seo Mi-hwa, and Kim Yong ranking first through fifth in that order.

During the joint campaign speeches earlier today, candidates Kim and Song brought up the results of the June 3 local elections to highlight the issue of accountability for Jeong Cheong-rae, while Jeong fired back at Kim, declaring, "No one knows who will win until it is over."

[Kim Min-seok/Democratic Party Leadership Candidate : There will be no instances of losing a region due to a slip of the tongue, nor will we miss out on a region because the central party fails to establish a clear stance.]

[Song Young-gil/Democratic Party Leadership Candidate : Some are promoting the victory in the Gangwon regional local elections as a triumph for Party Representative Jeong Cheong-rae, but leading the Democratic Party with this kind of mindset will make winning the general election far from easy.]

[Jeong Cheong-rae/Democratic Party Leadership Candidate : No one knows who will win until the very end. Acting as if one is already party leader, promising this party position to one person and that position to another.]

As Kim and Jeong continue their ultra-tight contest, the primaries for Honam, Seoul, and Gyeonggi—which account for more than 60 percent of all rank-and-file members—are scheduled for next weekend, and these results are expected to decide the final outcome of the race.

(Camera Reporter: Kang Dong-chul, Oh Young-chun | Video Editing: Yu Mi-ra)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.