Acting Representative of the Reform Party and Floor Leader Cheon Ha-ram agreed with the point that Lee Jun-seok's statement was a factor in the drop in voter support.
On the 5th, Cheon said during an MBC Radio program "Kim Jong-bae's Focus" that when the host asked, "Almost unanimous analysis suggests that the decisive reason for Lee Jun-seok's single-digit voter support (8.34%) was due to his frank remarks during the 3rd TV debate. Do you agree?" Cheon responded, "Now that the election is over, I can speak about it. I agree." However, regarding whether it was a decisive setback, he said, "I am not sure."
Cheon stated, "We conduct daily opinion polls, and after the comments from the 3rd TV debate, the figures dropped, but once it was revealed that ‘Lee Jun-seok did not make these comments up, and there were original remarks,’ and ‘the comments regarding Lee Jae-myung's son were toned down,’ there was some recovery in the numbers."
He added, "There was a trend of recovery, but due to the prevention of resignation sentiment, it did not fully recover, which was disappointing." He also noted, "I think there were still parts that could have been expanded at the end, but it seems the public viewed the very strong remarks made during the 3rd TV debate negatively." He expressed regret, saying, "There should have been more control of the level; it should have been toned down even further."
Regarding whether the related remarks were prepared at the camp level, Cheon said, "The TV debate team and Lee Jun-seok aimed to show that the Democratic Party and the Democratic Labor Party could not escape from factional logic and protecting their own people," revealing that it was a discussed matter. However, he remarked, "It seems that the setting was not clearly determined regarding how much to control the level or whether to mention it directly."