Yoon Suk-yeol, the presidential nominee of the main opposition People Power Party, is leading his rival Lee Jae-myung of the ruling Democratic Party by 8.2 percentage points in a hypothetical multicandidate race, a survey showed Wednesday.

Yoon earned 45.3 percent support against Lee's 37.1 percent in the survey of 1,036 adults conducted Monday and Tuesday by Realmeter.

Yoon gained 1.6 percentage points from the previous Realmeter survey released on Nov. 29, while Lee added 2 points.

The pollster said voters appeared to be throwing their support behind either major candidate as the March 9 presidential election nears.

In third place was Sim Sang-jeung, the presidential candidate of the minor progressive Justice Party, at 4 percent, followed by Ahn Cheol-soo of the minor opposition People's Party at 2.5 percent, and former Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon at 1.6 percent.

In a hypothetical two-way matchup, Yoon still led Lee 46.9 percent to 42 percent, but by a smaller margin than before of 4.9 percentage points. Since the previous survey, Yoon lost 1.7 percentage points, while Lee gained 2.3 points.

Realmeter said this is the first time the two have competed within the margin of error since it began similar surveys in November.

"Lee stayed on an upward trend, while Yoon's upward trend stalled amid internal feuds," the pollster said, apparently referring to the open displays of discord between Yoon and his party's chief, Lee Jun-seok.

The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. (Yonhap)