2019 Japan Unified Local Elections(April) and Upper House elections (July 21st)

[jaichind]

Exit polls show that anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī) with around 57% of the vote


Exit poll result by party support


Party support breakdown
LDP    33
CDP     6
DPP     1
KP       2
JCP     4
LP       2
SDP    5
None 41

None leans left all things equal.  

Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu) failed to win the entire LDP-KP vote.  Opposition to the base by some LDP-KP voters is the most likely reason.

Eyeball guess of vote by party support are

LDP:  anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī) 17.90%  Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu) 80.17%
KP:  anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī) 33.33%  Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu) 66.67%
None: anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī) 69.78%  Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu) 28.89%

Eyeball guess of exit poll for overall vote
anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī) 56.69%  Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu) 42.08%

[jaichind]

With 0.6% of the vote counted it is

anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī)   54.3% 
Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu)     44.4%

which pretty much match exit polls.

[jaichind]

Now both NHK and the local RBC also calls the race for anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī) as the pro-LDP village votes comes in and confirm the relative strength of anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī).

[jaichind]

With 46.1% of the vote counted it is

anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī)   54.4% 
Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu)     45.3%

[jaichind]

With 70.5% of the vote counted it is

anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī)   54.3% 
Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu)     45.3%

Been pretty stable for a while.  Most likely final result will look something like this.

[jaichind]

Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu) headquarters after the election was called by NHK.  The scale of defeat was quite a surprise to the LDP camp that expected a narrow defeat at worst.

[jaichind]

With 70.5% of the vote counted it is

anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī)   54.1% 
Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu)     45.2%

[jaichind]

With 91.9% of the vote counted it is

anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī)   54.4% 
Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu)     45.3%

[jaichind]

With 94.6% of the vote counted it is

anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī)   55.3% 
Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu)     44.3%

[jaichind]

All votes counted

anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī)   55.1% 
Pro-LDP 佐喜眞淳(Saki Masanobu)     43.9%

[jaichind]

So is the base the only major issue in Okinawa , this blowout seems to need more than that.

At this stage it is mostly about the bases.  The majority Okinawa opinion is that: with all these bases if and when there is a USA-PRC war the PLA will hit  Okinawa  hard and there might even be a PLA ground invasion of Okinawa.  In which case it will be 1945 all over again. Why is it always us.  Why cannot Mainland Japan take some brunt of the risk.

Frankly I think the Okinawa electorate did not vote wisely.  Surely they must know it does not matter how they vote, given the current USA-PRC strategic standoff in East Asia there is no way these bases  are going anywhere.  You might as well vote LDP and get as much goodies and freebies out of it as possible.

[jaichind]

Anti-base 玉城デニー (Tamaki Denī) won around 397K votes which is more than any other politician in Okinawan electoral history.

[jaichind]

Abe cabinet approval curve.  No bounce from Abe's victory in LDP Prez contest and the cabinet re-shuffle.   


Historically cabinet re-shuffle does lead to a bounce in cabinet approval.  Abe timed his 2014 and 2017 mid-term election a couple of months after a cabinet reshuffle to take advantage of a temporary surge in cabinet approval rating.     

[jaichind]

Abe cabinet approval curve slowly going into reverse


LDP support falling a bit (Red) while CDP support is stabilizing (Blue)


The main takeaway here is CDP is still the main opposition party to LDP.  In many ways that is good news for LDP.  Given the platform of the CDP they could energize anti-LDP forces to deny LDP-KP landslide victories but is unlikely to be able to garner enough support to deny the LDP-KP a majority.

[jaichind]

Here we go again.  It seems ex-JRP founder and leader 橋下 徹(Hashimoto Tōru) who has pretty much disowned JRP after 2017 is getting back in the thick of things trying for yet another opposition realignment.  There are reports that Hashimoto is having all sorts of late night dinners with LP leader Ozawa, and ex-DP leader 前原誠司 (Maebaru Seiji) who is now with DPP.  前原誠司 (Maebaru Seiji)  was the last leader of DP who in 2017 pretty much disbanded DP to merge into HP in a losing effort to defeat LDP in the 2017 elections.

It seems Hashimoto  wants to push for a DPP-JRP-LP alliance to defeat LDP in the next elections.  Not clear how this possible bloc will work with the CDP-SDP-JCP bloc.  On thing is for sure.  If these two blocs form and not coordinate in the 1- member districts the LDP-KP will run away in 2019 in another landslide victory.

[jaichind]

Conflict with ROK over the comfort women issue plus Abe working on a possible peace treaty is pushing up support Abe cabinet 



 

[jaichind]

茨城(Ibaraki) prefecture assembly election this Sunday.    Back in 2014 LDP won 45 and KP won 4 out of 63 seats.  The main opposition with 5 seats was a local rebel LDP faction led by a rebel LDP MP.  This LDP rebel MP seems to have, after the 2017 general elections, have formed an alliance with the Center-Left opposition.  This time around I suspect LDP will drop to something like 38 seats with DPP making a bunch of gains based de facto alliance with this local LDP rebel faction which I suspect will also make some gains.

[jaichind]

2014 茨城(Ibaraki) prefecture assembly was

              Contest   Won   Vote share
LDP             52           45       56.73%
KP                4             4         4.47%
LDP rebels     5             1        5.49%
PP                5              5        5.80% (LDP splinter faction, main opposition to LDP)
JRP               5             0        4.47%
DPJ            13              5       13.31%
SDP             1              0         0.99%
Minor Left    4              0         2.56%
JCP              4             3         5.81%

I think this time with PP DPP CDP de facto alliance it will be
LDP         40
KP            4
LDP rebel  2
PP            6
DPP          7
CDP          2
JCP           2

where both LDP and JCP gets squeezed by the PP-DPP-CDP alliance

[jaichind]

Counting done for 茨城(Ibaraki) prefecture assembly.  Turnout was very low and as a result it was a big victory for the Greater LDP bloc even though the big winner are actually LDP rebels.  On paper the results are

LDP  34
KP     4
CDP   1
DPP   4
JCP    2
Ind. 17


If you group the Independent winners into the right parties or blocs you really get

LDP           40
KP              4
LDP rebels  5
PP              5  (LDP rebel faction now aligned with opposition)
DPP           5
CDP           1
JCP            2

Prelim vote share count are
  
              Contest Win   Vote share
LDP           49       40       51.99%
KP              4         4         7.51%
LDP rebels   8         5       11.64%
JRP             1         0        0.45%
PP              6         5         5.77%
DPP          11         5       12.06%
CDP            2         1        3.16%
JCP             8         2        7.11%

With turnout low JCP and KP vote share rises.  JCP running in more districts clearly hurt the PP-DPP-DCP alliance.   It seems the 2014 JRP vote share mostly went over to LDP rebels.  Low turnout also means DPP and CDP did worse than expected.

[jaichind]

Under rule "If you win you are LDP" most if not all of LDP rebel winners will be allowed to the LDP caucus. 

Last few cycles it seems the main opposition is the LDP splinter faction PP after the DPJ split up. It seems now the main opposition to LDP are just LDP rebels in an very low turnout election.

So the opening round of the mega 2019 local elections goes to LDP.

[jaichind]

Overall there are 6 LDP backed independents and 5 LDP rebels that were elected. 10 of them will be inducted into LDP right away and be nominated by LDP retroactively as part of the rule "If you win you are LDP."  One LDP rebel seems to be still working out details of joining the LDP caucus.  So for now the breakdown for the 茨城(Ibaraki) prefecture assembly will be.

LDP                 44
Pro-LDP Ind.      1
KP                     4
PP                     5
DPP                   5
CDP                   1
JCP                   2

So when compared to 2014 the LDP bloc is down 1 seats, JCP is down 1 seat, PP is flat, and DPP-CDP gains 1 seat relative to DPJ in 2014.  The assembly lost 1 seat overall as a result of re-redistricting.  So despite the surge in LDP-KP vote share relative to 2014 this election is a wash due to the Center-Left Bloc (DPP CDP) nominating less candidates relative to 2014.  JCP nominated more candidates which only seems to have hurt the Center-Left bloc even as it lost a seat to CDP.

[jaichind]

The relative voting blocs in 茨城(Ibaraki) prefecture assembly seems fairly stable over the last 4 elections.

               LDP-KP-Third Pole             PP               Center-Left-JCP
             (includes LDP rebels)         
2006              73.96%                   4.92%                20.93%
2010              70.13%                   5.15%                24.36%
2014              71.17%                   5.80%                22.67%
2018              71.59%                   5.77%                22.33%

Of the 4 officially nominated LDP candidates that lost all of them were to LDP rebels. 2 of them were in 1-on-1 battles with a LDP rebel that they lost. 2 of them were in 2 member districts where 2 LDP candidates faced off with a LDP rebel which one of the official LDP candidate lost to the LDP rebel.

[jaichind]

Abe got the immigration bill in the special session of the diet.  It cost him a lot of political capital to get it through.  Also in this special section LDP failed submit constitution change proposals.  This most likely means it is unlikely LDP/Abe can get a formal constitutional amendment done by the Upper House elections in the summer of 2019.  This is key since the most likely outcome is that after the 2019 elections the Center-Left + JCP will emerge with around 37%-38% of the Upper House seats which effectively blocks formal constitutional amendment which requires 2/3 majority in both houses.  Of course Abe can always make deals with DPP but that just adds too many blocs he has to buy off (DPP HP KP JRP etc etc).

It could be that this outcome, for Abe, is a feature and not a bug.  It was always assumed that Abe's goal was formal constitutional  change.  It is possible that that was just a cheese he was dangling in front of the Conservative wing of the LDP to get them to back him being LDP leader for so long and when it comes down to it Abe just prioritize power instead of a constitutional amendment.

[jaichind]

Abe approval/disapproval curve moving in the negative direction again.  I suspect it has to do with the immigration law where the LDP Right is mostly upset he did this.


LDP support holding steady.  Aoki index seems to be around above 80 which means LDP victory if an election is held today


CDP support rising again.  CDP still be the main opposition party to LDP in 2019.  DPP will have pockets of strength but DPP cannot match CDP on the PR slate.

[jaichind]

New immigration law clearly has hit Abe cabinet support and LDP support among the core LDP base.  I think this should be temporary since Abe is getting ready for a stimulus package to counteract the impact of the consumption tax going from 8% to 10%.