GNP's then leader and probable presidential nominee Lee Hoi-chang was polling higher than any MDP candidates.

For the first time in South Korean history, the Democratic Party nominated its presidential candidate through open primaries.

At the beginning of the primaries, Rhee In-je, the 3-term congressman who ran against President Kim Dae-jung in 1997 but afterwards joined the ruling party, led the other candidates by a considerable margin in every poll.

[3] Although corruption scandals marred the incumbent government, Lee Hoi-chang's campaign suffered from the wave of Anti-American sentiment in Korea generated by the Yangju highway incident.

Public opinion of Lee, who was widely seen as being both pro-U.S. and the preferred candidate of the George W. Bush administration in Washington, D.C., suffered.