Japan Lower House election - Dec 14, 2014

[jaichind]

3) JCP PR did very well because of low turnout.

It's more than turnout; their PR vote rose from 3.7m in 2012 to 6.1m in 2014.

You mean 4.7M to 6M.  But you are 100% correct.  It is more than just turnout as JCP seems to be able to attract the anti-Abe vote.  Of course low turnout also helps.

[jaichind]

The PR vote was much lower than the 4.7m district vote, I presume because Communist district candidates are so frequent compared to other parties.

http://www.electionresources.org/jp/representatives.php?election=2012

You are right, my mistake.  4.7M is what JCP got in 2012 in FPTP seats.   In 2014 FPTP the JCP got 7M votes, an impressive surge.

[jaichind]

Looks like JCP got 11.4% on PR vote (not a record as in 1996 JCP got 13.08%) and 13.3% in the FPTP (a record, in 1996 JCP got 12.55% in the FPTP and in 1979 when the JCP won a record 39 seats it captured 10.42% of the vote.)  The record FPTP vote share for JCP goes a long way to explain why opposition consolidate at the FPTP district level did not yield results as a good part of the anti-LDP vote when to JCP.

[jaichind]

I was about to write about independents

Kishirō Nakamura (中村喜四郎) - Was a LDP postal reform rebel that never came back.  Was for a while part of pro-LDP splinter NRP before NRP declined into nothingness.   Have been winning his seat against LDP but overall pro-LDP

Koizumi Ryuji (小泉龍司) - Another postal reform rebel that never came back.  He has been associated with far right movements including people who are now are PFG gang.  Have been winning his seat against LDP but overall pro-LDP although it is better to describe him as pro-PFG.

Keiichiro Asao (浅尾慶一郎) - Former YP member and leader of YP after Watanabe stepped  down.   He used to be a member of the DPJ and one of the reason YP dissolved was because Asso and Watanabe could not agree on if YP should align with opposition (Asao) or LDP (Watanabe.)  He ran and won against LDP even though there was a DPJ rebel in the fray that could have split the anti-LDP vote.  In the end Asao won anyway.  Given the nature of the YP split we should view him as pro-DPJ.

Kotaro Nagasaki (長崎幸太郎) - Basically a LDP rebel that had to beat an official LDP candidate to win.  He was actually recruited by LDP to run against a LDP postal reform rebel.   But in 2009 seeing that the LDP ship was sinking decided to jump ship.  Still he should be seen as pro-LDP from a policy point of view.

Tsuyoshi Yamaguchi (山口壮) - Former DPJ MP and part of the DPJ cabinet  that actually managed to win in 2012.  Then broke away from the DPJ.  He then "joined" one of the LDP factions in his district hoping to be nominated by LDP in 2014.  Another LDP faction wanted to nominate their own candidate.  The decision is that both will run as independents.  He managed to win his seat and now should be seen as pro-LDP.  I am pretty sure he will join LDP very soon now that he won.

Shizuka Kamei (亀井静香) - Another postal reform rebel who formed PNP as an anti-postal reform party.  He lead the PNP to become an ally of DPJ.  After PNP wound up has joined Green Wind before that party disbanded.  Was supported by DPJ against the LDP in his district.  Should be seen as pro-DPJ.

Takahiro Inoue (井上貴博) - Was the incumbent LDP MP of his district.  But another rival faction wanted to nominate another candidate.  So the decision was that both he and his LDP rival will run as independents.  I thought DPJ will capture this seat due to the split of the LDP vote but the intra-LDP civil war actually polarized the vote and pulled him through.  He should be seen as pro-LDP for sure and should rejoin LDP soon.

Takeshi Noma (野間健) - Was a member of DPJ running unsuccessfully in the past on the DPJ ticket.   Then joined PNP which is a LDP postal reform rebel party that then formed an alliance with DPJ and won in 2012 as a joint candidate for DPJ and PNP.   After PNP disbanded he became an independent.  He has won reelection with DPJ support against LDP.  Should be seen as pro-DPJ.

Nakazato Toshinobu (仲里利信) - Won in Okinawa as an independent supported by the Okinawa Social Mass Party as well as DPJ, PLP, JIP, SDP and even the JCP against the LDP.  Should be seen as pro-DPJ.

So overall it is 5 pro-LDP, 4 pro-DPJ

[jaichind]

Most sites are now reporting only 8 independents won. So I'm taking it that Takeshi Noma lost. So 6 pro-LDP and only 2 pro-DPJ.

I am confused by this as well.  I looked onto this and found what took place.   It seems for Takahiro Inoue the LDP decided that since he won that they retroactively nominated him.  We Chinese have a saying "The winner is king and the loser bandit."   This explains why on election night LDP had 290 seats but now have 291 while independents 9 and now 8.

[jaichind]

BTW, I was wrong in saying that JCP has never won a FPTP seat until now.   It seems they won 2 in 1996 which was another good year for JCP.

[jaichind]

News from the FPG front.  Ishihara Senior to retire from politics.  He blamed the FPG defeat on the fact that the name is to difficult to understand and explain to the voter.  I will miss him and wish him the best of luck.  While I did not agree with a lot of his views I can empathize with them as a fellow nationalist.  While I feel he is hypocritical about some of his views on the whole I like how he was blunt and straightforward about how he felt and did not apologize for views that many might view as controversial. 

Toshio Tamogami (田母神俊雄) who won a surprising 12% in the recent Tokyo Governor race finished 4th behind KP, JCP, and PLP as the PFG candidate.  He was COS for the Japanese Air Force and was fired for writing an essay saying that Japan was not the aggressor in WWII.  I sort of feel this this bum rap regardless how you feel about his position.  Imagine of Colin Powell was fired because he wrote and essay on an US military historical topic that is at odds with the USA government's official historical position.   Not sure that is justified.  One way or another he was soundly defeated in his seat. 

[jaichind]

As mentioned before DPJ Banri Kaieda was defeated in his Tokyo seat and did not do well enough to quality for the DPJ Tokyo PR list.  What is not mentioned was that he was beaten out  by none other than Naoto Kan who was also beaten in his Tokyo seat but did better than Banri Kaieda did which put him ahead to get a seat on the DPJ Tokyo PR slate.

Speaking of PR slates, out of the 284 LDP candidates that ran in the FPTP seats, only 8 failed to win their seat AND failed to come back on the PR list.  Pretty good strike rate. 

[jaichind]

I did my own calculations of the FPTP vote share based on data I got from Asahi and NHK.  My numbers might be a bit different from others because

1) I split out the independent vote into LDP Independent or rebels, DPJ Independent or rebels, YP Independents (former YP members that did not join another party and instead running as independents), and true Independents/minor parties
2) I count one PFG backed independent as part of the PFG vote share.
3) In the 2 seats where we had 2 LDP independent running in each, using the logic "If you win you are LDP", I count the winner of each under LDP and the other LDP independent as a LDP  Independent or rebels.

LDP         48.35%
KP             1.45%
DPJ          22.46%
JIP            8.21%
SDP          0.79%
PLP           0.97%
JCP         13.29%
PFG          1.89%
Ind-LDP    0.86%
Ind-DPJ     1.05%
Ind-YP      0.45%
Ind           0.21%

[jaichind]

So a chart of FPTP vote and PR vote clustered by rough alliances

                 FPTP           PR

LDP         48.35%    33.11%
KP             1.45%    13.71%
Ind-LDP    0.86%
Ind-YP      0.45%
-------------------------------------------
              51.11%    46.82%

DPJ          22.51%   18.33%
JIP            8.16%    15.72%  
SDP          0.79%      2.46%
PLP           0.97%      1.93%
Ind-DPJ     1.05%
------------------------------------
              33.48%    38.44%

JCP         13.30%    11.37%

PFG          1.89%     2.65%

Ind/Oth    0.21%     0.72%

So both the LDP-KP bloc and JCP over-performed in the FPTP vote share relative to their PR vote shares.  This is the mirror image of the under-performance of the {DPJ JIP PLP SDP} bloc in the FPTP vote.  This is to some extent the fact that in 35 FPTP seats the {DPJ JIP PLP SDP} bloc did not nominate a candidate or backed an like minded ally where as LDP-KP and JCP pretty much ran everywhere.  But is mostly the failure for the various tactical alliances of {DPJ JIP PLP SDP} bloc to work at the ground level as their voters often opted for JCP or LDP-KP in the FPTP seats rather than vote for an ally of the party of their choice.  As {DPJ JIP PLP SDP} bloc gain more experience in terms of policy of working together this could change next election if this bloc can hold together.  

[jaichind]

I will now post some postmortems of my pre-election predictions.  Overall I predicted LDP-KP at 285 and they ended up with 326.  The media polls mostly clustered around 345-350 for LDP-KP so in that sense the media polls were closer than I was.  Looking in detail, I got the PR section of the election correct as far as LDP-KP vote share which I predicted at 46% and it ended up being 46.8% while media polls were predicting something like 51%-53% for LDP-KP.  The media polls got the dynamics of the FPTP seats correct though in predicting that the {DPJ JIP SDP PLP} loose confederation would struggle to transfer votes to each other while I stuck to my guns that they will be effective to transferring votes to each other.  The net affect was that if JIP was running against LDP alone, opposition votes transfer tends to leak toward the JCP and if DPJ was running against LDP alone, opposition vote transfers tend to leak toward the LDP.  My prediction being off by around 1% for the PR vote for both LDP-KP and JCP plus these leaks mean a swing away for {DPJ JIP SDP PLP} relative to their combined PR strength by 3%-6%.   This cost them around 30 FPTP seats to LDP-KP which in turn would have been the gap between my prediction and what took place.

[jaichind]

That said the PR vote I project to be

LDP   31%
KP     15%
DPJ    24.3%
JIP     12%
JCP     10%
PFG     3%
PLP     2%
SDP    2%
HRP    0.4%
Other  0.3%

        Predicted    Actual
LDP   31%           33.11%
KP     15%           13.71%
DPJ    24.3%        18.33%
JIP     12%           15.72%
JCP     10%          11.37%
PFG     3%             2.65%
PLP     2%              1.93%
SDP    2%              2.46%
HRP    0.4%           0.49%
Other  0.3%          0.23%
 
I am mostly on target other than getting the DPJ JIP relative balance wrong.  This actually plays into my mistake on the FPTP seats as well as I assumed that a JIP would lose support to DPJ outside of Kinki which actually would make vote transfer between these two parties easier.  It turns out not to be the case.

[jaichind]

1) Of the 149 seats that will be DPJ vs LDP/KP I expect that DPJ will win 37 with another 30 as possible wins for DPJ

Out of the 37 seats I expected DPJ to win, they won 33.  Out of the 4 I missed 3 of them were in Tokyo where the YP vote went stronger for LDP than I had expected as well as leakages of votes to JCP and LDP.  To be fair, out of these 3 Tokyo seats, only one was very close with the other 2 DPJ losing by a large margin as the swing of YP and JIP votes there to LDP was very strong.  The last one I missed was where the LDP nominated two candidates due to a LDP faction battle and I had expected DPJ to win with the LDP vote being split.  Turns out the LDP faction battle polarized the election toward the two rival LDP candidates and the sitting LDP MP won despite an internal LDP rebellion.

Of the 30 seats where DPJ could win, DPJ won 2 of them.  Rest of them were lost mainly due to leakage of votes to both JCP or LDP.  About half of the 30 were not even close.

On the flip side, there were 4 seats DPJ came close to winning that was not on my 30 seats that DPJ have a chance in winning.

Is is interesting to look at the 3 Tokyo seats where I got it wrong to see the size of the swings involved. 

The first one is Tokyo 1st - where DPJ leader Banri Kaieda lost his seat just like 2012 but did even worse this time so he did not even come back on the PR list.

2012 Tokyo 1st            2014 Tokyo 1st
LDP        29.3%            LDP           42.7%
DPJ        28.9%             DPJ           35.6%
JRP         17.2%            JCP           13.1%
YP          11.3%            PFG            7.2%
JCP          6.7%
PLP          5.3%       

Here DPJ had the advantage of united center-left opposition (PLP vote in 2012 should go DPJ) AND PFG running to capture the hawk vote that sent JRP last time and could have gone LDP this time.  Instead DPJ lost by a winder margin.  JCP took a bunch of votes away from DPJ and it seems almost all of the YP vote sent LDP instead of being split between LDP and DPJ.  It also seems that 2012 JRP vote mostly went to PFG and DPJ but some of it sent to LDP as well. The leak of YP and JRP votes to LDP on one had and lead of center-left votes to JCP on the other hand defeated DPJ by a wide margin.  I was sure that Banri Kaieda would win based on the favorite son effect but it seems not to be the case.


The second one is Tokyo 18th - where former DPJ leader and PM Nanto Kanlost his seat just like 2012 but did come back on the PR list.

2012 Tokyo 18th            2014 Tokyo 18th
LDP        32.2%            LDP           45.8%
DPJ         28.3%             DPJ          38.8%
DPJ rebel 17.2%            JCP           15.4%
JRP         11.0%         
PLP          6.1%
JCP          5.1%       

Here I expected a DPJ win as there is center-left consolidation (DPJ rebel and PLP 2012 votes should go DPJ) and the favorite son effect.  Instead it seems that the entire JRP vote has leaked to LDP along with some of the DPJ rebel 2012 vote.  Also a large chunk of the center-left went to JCP which made this race not even close.

The third one is Tokyo 21st -  Here a DPJ MP that actually won in 2012 lost by a narrow margin

2012 Tokyo 21st            2014 Tokyo 21st
DPJ         36.5%            LDP           41.6%
LDP         30.8%             DPJ          40.8%
JRP         16.2%             JCP           17.6%         
JCP            9.6%       
PLP            5.0%

Here the center-left consolidation was suppose to help the DPJ.  Again, it seems JRP vote share leaked a good chunk to LDP and center-left vote share leaked a good chunk to JCP.  So DPJ lost by a very narrow margin.

[jaichind]

2) Of the 51 seats that will be JIP vs LDP/KP I expect that JIP will win 10 with another 13 as possible wins for JIP

Of the 10 seats I expect JIP to win, JIP won 8 of them.  The 2 that I expected JIP to win but did not were all in Osaka where JIP was beaten in one of them due to large leakage of DPJ votes to JCP and in the other one a DPJ rebel ran much better than expected robbing JIP votes to beat LDP.  

Of the 13 possible JIP wins, the JIP won none of them.  All of them were lost to leakage of votes to mostly JCP but some to LDP.  Again, half of the 13 were not even close.

The two that LDP won even though I was sure that JIP would win were

Osaka 7th.  The LDP incumbent that won in a fractured race in 2012 managed to win even with opposition consolidation. 

2012 Osaka 7th           2014 Osaka 7th
LDP        33.3%            LDP           43.2%
JRP         29.7%            JIP            36.1%
DPJ         21.5%            JCP           20,7%
JCP         10.2%           
PLP          5.2%       

Here JIP could count on a good deal of DPJ and PLP vote transfers to be able to win.  It seems the 2012 JRP vote had a significant component which was the YP vote as YP was backing JRP in Osaka 7th.  In 2014 most of that YP vote went to LDP.  While there was some transfer of DPJ and PLP vote to JIP, a large chunk went to JCP giving the LDP a conformable victory. 


Osaka 9th.  Here the JIP incumbent that beat the LDP in 2012 by a good margin and now can expect DPJ support which should make it easy to win reelection.  Atlas this was spoiled by a DPJ rebel whose vote pull I underestimated.
 
2012 Osaka 9th           2014 Osaka 9th
JRP         39.8%            LDP           41.3%
LDP        34.3%            JIP             39.5%
DPJ         17.8%            JCP           13.5%
JCP           8,0%            DPJ rebel     5.7%

Here the JIP 2012 vote included YP supporters which seems to have gone to LDP.   DPJ support that should have gone to JIP was splintered between JCP and the DPJ rebel.  Note the JCP surge was not as great here since DPJ voters that did not want to vote JIP had the option of the DPJ rebel in addition to the JCP.  As it is JIP lose reelection by a small margin due to the YP defection and DPJ transfer vote leakage factors. 
       

[jaichind]

3) Of the 9 seats that will be PLP vs LDP/KP I expect that PLP will win 2  
4) Of the 9 seats that will be SDP vs LDP/KP I expect that SDP will win 1 with no chance of any more wins.

I was spot on for these seats, PLP and SDP won 2 and 1 seats in exactly the seats I predicted.  No more and no less.

[jaichind]

5) Of the 34 seats where two of set {DPJ, JIP, PLP, and SDP} will be running against LDP/KP, I expect DPJ to win 2 of them with another 3 as a possibility.  I expect JIP to win 4 of them with another 2 as a possibility.    Note that of these 34  {DPJ, JIP, PLP, and SDP} threw away 13 possible additional seats where they had a chance to win if they actually had a successful seats adjustment but instead have no chance due to the split in vote.  This means that there are 10 out of this 34 where it did not matter that  {DPJ, JIP, PLP, and SDP} could not have agreement to have one candidate to face LDP. Even if they did LDP was going to win anyway.

a) Of the 2 seats I expected DPJ to win despite opposition vote split, I was spot on
b) Of the 3 possible seats I expected DPJ to win despite opposition vote split, DPJ won none of them with 2 of the 3 being very close.
c) Of the 4 seats I expected JIP to win despite opposition vote split, JIP won 3 of them but lost the 1 of them
d) Of the 2 possible seats I expected JIP to win despite opposition vote split, JIP won 1 of them with the other being very close.
e) Of the 13 seats I indicted that the opposition had a chance if they did not split the vote, LDP indeed won all of them.  4 of them were not even close and even had the opposition put up one candidate LDP would have easily won.  2 of them were very close and the opposition easily could have won even with the vote split.
f) Of the 10 seats I indicated that even an united opposition would not have won the seat, I was right in the sense that all of them were not close.

Note I am more on spot for predictions where the opposition vote is split.  Here I did not have to make judgement calls on opposition vote transfers where I got the dynamics wrong.   I had to make predictions more based on the vote base of each of the opposition parties.

The one seat where there were a splintered opposition but I felt the LDP will lose anyway but I was wrong about was Osaka 11th.  Here the JIP incumbent was defeated by a swing of the YP vote made the difference in the LDP victory even though his margin of victory from 2012 seems quite safe to me.

2012 Osaka 11th                2014 Osaka 11th
JRP             40.3%               LDP        34.6%
DPJ            29.1%                DPJ        28.6%
LDP            22.0%               JIP          27.3%
JCP              8.5%                JCP          9.6%

Here the YP vote share was quite large and mostly swung to LDP giving LDP the victory.  There was no tactical voting between the remaining JIP vote and DPJ vote bases.  Note that the JCP vote did not go up that much as DPJ voters that did not like JIP could just vote DPJ and not JCP.  This race shows the JCP surge at the FPTP level is mostly explained by anti-JIP DPJ voters that voted JCP.  I totally underestimated the size of the YP vote in Osaka 11th and how much of it went over to LDP.  The result was a conformable LDP victory even though it came in a poor third in 2012.  

[jaichind]

6) PFG will win 3 seats, 2 against LDP  and 1 unopposed by all non-JCP parties

Of the 3 PFG seats I expected to win, PFG won 2.  There was also a PFG backed independent that came close to winning in a 3 way contest between LDP, DPJ and PFG backed independent.   

[jaichind]

7) 6 pro-LDP (from a hawk-dove policy point of view which includes a couple of ex-YP sitting MPs) independent will win (1 of them against  {DPJ, JIP, PLP, and SDP} with LDP support, 5 of them against LDP 1-on-1 and they are more pro-PFG but also pro-LDP)

5 of the 6 pro-LDP independents I expected to win did win.  The one I missed was ex-YP leader Wanatabe who lost to his LDP rival.  An additional pro-LDP independent won over DPJ that I expected DPJ to win due to the split of the LDP vote was retroactively made the LDP candidate after he won.  

Also, there was a pro-LDP independent incumbent MP  that ran in a 3 way race with the DPJ and LDP which I expected him to lose to LDP.  He did but he lose in a much narrower margin than I had expected mostly due to opposition tactical voting toward him to help defeat LDP which meant the DPJ candidate got a very low share of the vote.

[jaichind]

8 ) 2 pro-DPJ independents with the support of  {DPJ, JIP, PLP, and SDP} will win over LDP with 1 pro-DPJ independent  that has a chance to win.
9) 1 JCP possible win in FPTP

a) For pro-DPJ independents what is above is a typo.  I expected all 3 pro-DPJ independents to win.  They all did.
b) The one possible JCP win turned out to be a win.  It was in the 1st Okinawa district.  In Okinawa a massive center-left alliance was formed with Okinawa Social Mass Party, DPJ, PLP, SDP, JCP and partly JIP.  This the only place JCP joined the opposition alliance.  In the Okinawa 1st it ended up being a 3 way contest between LDP, JIP and JCP. JIP running actually helped JCP as a majority of the district still will not vote JCP.  JIP was able to take the anti-LDP anti-JCP vote which would have ended up voting for LDP if JIP did not run.

[jaichind]

A good comparison of the 2014 PR vote results given the turnout should be the 2013 Upper House elections.  2013 election was just 1.5 years ago and turnout in both elections were about 52%-53%

2013 PR vs 2014 PR we have

             2013           2014
LDP      34.7%           33.1%
NKP     14.2％            13.7%
DPJ      13.4％            18.3%
JRP      11.9％            15.7%
FPG                             2.7%  
JCP        9.7％           11.4%
YP          8.9％            
SDP        2.4％            2.5%
PLP        1.8％             1.9%
NPD       1.0%            
GP         0.9%                  
GW        0.8%            
HRP       0.4%            0.5%
Others                       0.2%

Note that NPD is supporting DPJ this time around, GW has disbanded, and GP did not run.  I expect most of these PR votes from 2014 to go to DPJ,PLP,SDP this time around.
YP is gone as well and its votes most likely split between LDP, JIP, and DPJ with a bias toward LDP.
FPG split from JRP and most of its 2014 votes are from the JRP of 2013.  
I can cluster DPJ PLP SDP NPD GP and GW as DPJ+, I can label LDP-KP as LDP+ and from there I can map out roughly the flow of votes from 2013 to 2014

                                   2014
                 LDP+     DPJ+     JCP         JIP         PFG        HRP       Other  
   LDP+   41.82%   2.92%   0.00%   3.56%   0.50%   0.07%   0.03%   48.90%
   DPJ+    0.00%   18.30%   1.69%   0.00%   0.00%   0.00%   0.20%   20.19%
2  YP         5.00%    0.50%   0.00%   3.43%   0.00%   0.00%   0.00%    8.93%
0  JCP       0.00%    0.00%   9.68%   0.00%   0.00%   0.00%   0.00%     9.68%
1  JRP       0.00%    1.00%   0.00%   8.73%   2.15%   0.06%   0.00%   11.94%
3  HRP      0.00%    0.00%   0.00%   0.00%   0.00%   0.36%   0.00%     0.36%
             46.82%   22.72% 11.37%  15.72%  2.65%   0.49%   0.23%    


This chart should have Abe worried.  The breakup of YP added 4.5% of the vote to LDP+ yet LDP+ still
 lost 2.1% from 2013 overall.  The reason is LDP+ lost 2%-3% each to JIP and DPJ from 2013.  When YP was formed in 2009 it took 4%-5% of the vote away from LDP.  Now that vote is coming back and since YP under Wanetabe was pro-LDP during most of that time, these 4%-5% was always Abe's to some extent.  So The gain of 4.5% of the vote from YP is just LDP+ getting what was its anyway.   But the loss of 6% of the vote from LDP+ to DPJ and JIP is a signal that Abe in 2014 is a good deal weaker in 2014 than 2013.

[jaichind]

Another way to look at the dynamic of vote leakage is to take a closer look at certain battleground regions where we can compare FPTP vote performance with PR performance.  I will focus on 4 such regions: Hokkaido (北海道), Tohoku(東北), Tokyo(東京), and Kinki (近畿).  

One obvious sign of vote leakage on the left is the fact that JCP go 11.37% overall on the PR vote but 13.30% on the FPTP vote overall.  Of course one major reason for this is there are many districts where {DPJ, JIP, PLP, SDP) or a DPJ-supported independent did not even run.  In such cases JCP will get a much larger share of the vote relative to their PR vote as some anti-LDP voters will then go JCP.  Since these 4 regions are fairly competitive in Hokkaido (北海道), Tohoku(東北), and Tokyo(東京) there are no such districts allowing us a easy apples-to-apples comparison between FPTP and PR.  In Kinki (近畿) 5 out of 48 districts have such a situation and I will work to take that into account.

What I will do is to compare the LDP+ (LDP, KP, pro-LDP independents, pro-LDP former YP independents) FPTP votes with the LDP+ (LDP,KP) PR vote and do the same for JCP.

We can look at Hokkaido (北海道) and Tohoku(東北) first

Hokkaido (北海道) (LDP+ 10, DPJ 2)

LDP    PR          42.09%
LDP+ FPTP       45.26%
JCP    PR           12.09%
JCP    FPTP        11.90%

Here in 2012 LDP+ got 43.8% in the FPTP and I had expected it to have a negative swing against the LDP+ in 2014.  It ended up being a positive swing of 1.46%.  I was not that off it was much smaller than the LDP+ FPTP swing in all of Japan.  The reason for the swing is mostly leakage of opposition PR votes to LDP+.  Note that there is no real leakage of opposition votes to JCP.  This is because Hokkaido is a DPJ stronghold so JIP only ran in 2 seats with DPJ running in one of them with the DPJ supporting the JIP in the other but in that same district a DPJ rebel running against JIP.  So in every district there is a de facto center-left candidate which means the anti-JIP anti-LDP voter does not have to vote JCP beyond the JCP voter.  We can see that is what took place.  On the flip side since the JIP only ran in 2 districts the anti-DPJ JIP voter leaked to LDP+ in the other 10 districts leading to LDP+ FPTP over-performance relative to LDP+ PR.   JIP and the old YP are not very strong in Hokkaido so there are just less votes to leak to LDP+ but there was still some impact.  LDP+ got 10 vs DPJ/JIP 2 seats in Hokkaido but a lot of them were very close.  If in the 2 JIP seats the DPJ plus DPJ rebels managed to stay out and defection to to JCP limited as well JIP defection to LDP+ also kept to be more limited, then it could have been LDP+ 5 DPJ/JIP 7.  In the end it was very close in many seats in Hokkaido and the center-left opposition vote leak was just enough to give LDP+ a solid set of seats.


 
Tohoku(東北) (LDP+ 19, DPJ 4, PLP 1, JIP 1)

LDP    PR          44.16%
LDP+ FPTP       48.03%
JCP    PR             9.89%
JCP    FPTP         9.48%

Like Hokkaido, DPJ and also PLP are relatively strong here.  Out of the 25 seats, DPJ ran in 18, PLP 2, and JIP 5).  Overall the leakage from the center-left vote based to JCP, even when JIP is running, does not seem to be significant although there was unusual JCP vote in one of the seats JIP was running in and that large JCP vote cost the JIP a seat.  In another district where JIP was running even though JCP vote was not high, it was a lot higher than it was in 2012 so one can count that one as JCP vote leakage costing JIP a seats.  In many of the districts that DPJ and PLP, there was significant leakage of most likely JIP and also YP voters over to LDP+.  LDP+ over-performed in FPTP over PR by almost 4% which represents a significant leak from JIP and YP supporters.  Overall, leakage of JIP votes to LDP+ cost the DPJ 2 seats at least where it was close even after significant vote leakage to LDP+

We can do a chart by district type as far as types of competitions in Tohoku and look at swings from 2012 for JCP.   Since DPJ is relatively strong in Tokhoku, the there does not seem to be too much vote leakage toward the JCP overall, especially when DPJ is in the fray where the JCP swing from 2012 is 2.88%. Although the JCP still had a positive swing which was enough to cost DPJ a couple of seats.  When the JIP is running instead we can clearly see opposition vote leakage toward JCP where the JCP  is +3.9% from 2012.

Seat type                          Count     JCP 12    JCP 14     Swing
PR                                                 5.92%     9.89%    +3.97%
FPTP                                 25         6.60%     9.48%    +2.88%
JCP vs DPJ vs LDP+           18         6.78%     9.38%    +2.60%
JCP vs PLP vs LDP+             2         8.00%   11.32%    +3.59%
JCP vs JIP vs LDP+              5         5.42%     9.32%    +3.90%

A similar chart but for LDP+ swings in Tohoku would be below.  Here we see the trend being different in other regions.  LDP+ got a lot of YP FPTP the votes in 2012 so the swing toward LDP+ was not as large in 2014 for FPTP but was still large enough to hurt both DPJ and JIP give the significant over-performance of LDP+ in FPTP over PR.   Here the opposition vote leakage toward to LDP+ is just as large if not larger for JIP (+4.88% for LDP+) as DPJ (+2.84% for LDP+).  This seems to be a function of JIP having a weaker base in Tohoku.  Seems like at least in Tohoku DPJ-JIP-PLP should have allocated less seats to JIP.

Seat type                          Count   LDP+ 12   LDP+ 14    Swing
PR                                                37.73%   44.16%   +6.43%
FPTP                                 25        44.81%   48.03%   +3.22%
JCP vs DPJ vs LDP+           18        45.53%   48.37%   +2.84%
JCP vs PLP vs LDP+             2        42.20%   43.41%   +1.21%
JCP vs JIP vs LDP+              5        46.58%   51.46%   +4.88%

[jaichind]

With the return of the pro-LDP YP vote share to the LDP as well as the end of all LDP postal reform rebel parties (last one left is NPD which this election pretty much merged into DPJ), the LDP-KP vote bloc is reverting to a pre-2005 world.  After 2005, the LDP had several splits.  First there was the postal reform rebels parties in 2005, then 2009 we had the pro-Libertarian YP split, and finally we had the Takeo Hiranuma (who himself was a postal reform rebel) far right superhawk movement which led to the creation of the Sun Party which in turn merged into JRP and now split out to become PFG.

The postal reform rebels has mostly returned to LDP or have allied/merged with DPJ.  The YP has dissolved with the more pro-hawk wing de facto going back to LDP while others merging into JIP or DPJ.  One possible future is PFG merge back in LDP.  If so the LDP-KP coalition will be pretty much the LDP-KP coalition of 2003 lower house elections.  In fact if you look at the PR vote share of 2003 LDP-KP and compare it to the 2014 LDP-KP vote share plus FPG vote share they pretty much match.  Doing such a comparison by PR region leads to a similar conclusion.


PR           03 LDP+   LDP+PGP   Swing
北海道      45.00%   43.63%     -1.37%
東北         49.49%   46.01%     -3.48%
北関東      51.64%   52.15%      0.51%
南関東      48.37%   50.23%      1.86%
東京         46.54%   48.60%      2.06%
北陸信越   49.01%   47.45%     -1.56%
東海         48.81%   48.05%     -0.76%
近畿         48.08%   45.63%     -2.45%
中国         55.12%   58.33%      3.22%
四国         54.92%   53.47%     -1.45%
九州         53.47%   54.00%      0.54%
Total        49.73%   49.48%     -0.26%

Here we see that LDP-KP in 2003 has pretty much the same vote share as LDP-KP plus PFG in 2014.  Everything has gone full circle.  Only difference is some LDP+ vote share in Hokkaido (北海道) has dropped due to NPD's permanent defection from LDP.  Same for Kinki (近畿) where JIP which has strong regional presence  has manged to pull some LDP votes from 2003 into its orbit. Tohoku (東北) has been trending DPJ last 10 years and these numbers show it. It is interesting that LDP+ has gained since 2003 in economically advanced areas like Tokyo (東京) and Minamikanto( 南関東) which are for more free market policies as well as economically stagnant and backward places like Chugoku (中国) which are for more state capitalism.  This implies that Abe will have more policy disputes within the LDP going forward and even more so than the Koizumi era.

[jaichind]

Chugoku (中国)

Does this name ever get confusing?

Yes, but the intersection set is fairly small.  Most Chinese does not seem that interested in Japanese politics (unlike me) because the concept of 中国 only comes up in an election as a PR region.  Day-to-day people just refer to the prefectures names so the Chinese would even encounter this name.  For Japanese themselves I can see this being a problem but bear in mind that the way the Japanese refer to China tend to use the term 華 (Hua) and less  中国 (ChungKuo).  Older Japanese generations use 支那 (ZhiNa) which many Chinese find insulting (although not me as for me the term 支那 first came up during the Tang Dynasty by the Chinese themselves) so other than the Japanese far right this term does not get used.  So, yes, it can get confusing for the Japanese, I guess, but there are ways around it.

[jaichind]

Looking at Tokyo(東京), and Kinki (近畿) doing doing leakage analysis we get.

Tokyo(東京) (LDP+ 23, DPJ 1, JIP 1)

LDP    PR          44.21%
LDP+ FPTP       46.64%
JCP    PR           15.37%
JCP    FPTP        16.34%

Here DPJ and JIP are much more even in terms of strength.  DPJ ran in 17 seat, JIP 5, PLP 1, and in 2 seats DPJ and JIP could not get to an agreement and both ran.  Here you can see leakage to both JCP and LDP+.  It is clear that where JIP is running by itself the JCP vote share, which is already pretty high, is even higher as anti-JIP DPJ voters opted for JCP.  The JCP vote leakage cost JIP 1 seat.  Note that even in places that DPJ ran there was some leakage to JCP although with smaller margins.  Here I suspect it is the anti-nuclear vote that went JCP because they do not see DPJ as being effective on that issue.  Likewise in places DPJ ran, one can see a large swing of JIP and former YP voters that are anti-DPJ to LDP+.  About 3-4 DPJ seats were lost this way, all of them based on very large shifts of the JIP and YP vote of 2012 to LDP+ as well as some leakage to JCP.  Overall, JCP performed much better on the PR than I expected mostly due to the nuclear issue I think.  And then the JCP over-performed on the FPTP on top of that costing the DPJ JIP dearly in terms of seats.


We can do a chart by district type as far as types of competitions in Tokyo and look at swings from 2012 for JCP.  Here we can see that when it is DPJ facing off against LDP+ and JCP, there is a smaller swing of 6.88% for the JCP since 2012 but when it is JIP facing off against LDP+ and JCP the swing for JCP from 2012 is much larger at 10.2%.  This fits the narrative of the leakage of votes to JCP especially when DPJ is not in the running.

Seat type                          Count     JCP 12    JCP 14     Swing
PR                                                 7.41%   15.37%    +7.96%
FPTP                                 25         8.02%   16.34%    +8.32%
JCP vs DPJ vs LDP+           17         9.13%   16.01%    +6.88%
JCP vs PLP vs LDP+             1        18.90%  21.04%    +2.14%
JCP vs JIP vs LDP+              5         8.30%   18.50%   +10.20%
JCP vs JIP vs DPJ vs LDP+    2         8.05%   13.53%    +5.48%
 

A similar chart but for LDP+ swings in Tokyo would be below.  For the seats where it is DPJ versus LDP+ and JCP, the swing toward LDP+ at 7.2% is larger than Tokyo average whereas the swing toward LDP+ for seats it is JIP versus LDP+ and JPC is smaller than average at 6.1%.  The vote leakage toward the LDP+ here is mostly in the districts there JIP is not running.  The seats where it is PLP vs KP vs JCP and the 2 4 way battles where it is JIP vs DPJ vs LDP vs JCP has some weird swings but we should read too much into them since they are only 1 and 2 districts each.  The PLP vs KP vs JCP one is more about JRP backed KP in 2012 but is backing PLP this time or went to the PFG candidate running as well.  There are still a lot of vote leakage from JIP over to KP but relative to 2012 the KP lost votes.  As for the 2 JIP vs DPJ vs LDP vs JCP seats, in 2012 both the JRP and YP ran in these 2 seats so the LDP did not get much if any of the YP votes in these 2 seats in 2012.  In 2014 it got most of them which explains the large swing toward LDP+ in these 2 seats.

Seat type                          Count    LDP+ 12 LDP+ 14     Swing
PR                                                35.01%  44.21%    +9.20%
FPTP                                 25        39.92%  46.64%    +6.72%
JCP vs DPJ vs LDP+           17        40.38%  47.58%    +7.20%
JCP vs PLP vs LDP+             1        51.40%  41.64%    -9.16%
JCP vs JIP vs LDP+              5        42.12%  48.22%    +6.10%
JCP vs JIP vs DPJ vs LDP+    2       31.30%   41.89%  +10.59%



Kinki (近畿) (LDP+ 36, DPJ 6, JIP 6)

LDP    PR          43.55%
LDP+ FPTP       46.15%
JCP    PR           12.48%
JCP    FPTP        16.21%

Here, especially in Osaka, JIP is stronger than DPJ although in the rest of Kinki it is mostly even.  Note that with relative greater JIP strength, JIP contested a lot more seats leading to large JCP vote leakage.  Now the JCP FPTP vote is exaggerated above since 6 out of the 48 seats has the {DPJ JIP PLP SDP} not running at all.  By removing these seats from the calculations the JCP FPTP still comes out to around 14.3% which still represents a large vote leakage.  And on the flip side vote leakage to LDP+ is also significant, especially in places where DPJ is running by itself.  Also the in several places the JIP is running, DPJ rebels also ran which also created more vote leakages of vote transfers from DPJ to JIP.  Most of the losses here are on the JIP side.  DPJ lost 1 seats due to vote leakage to LDP+, but JIP lost 6 seats due to vote leakage to JCP or DPJ rebels.


We can do the same chart by district type.  We can see JCP PR vote went up 4.96% from 2012 in Kinki and up 6.05% in all 48 FPTP from 2012.  We can factor out the JCP vs LDP+ alone where the swing would exaggerated since in 2012 there was a non-JCP opposition party to LDP+ but not this time.  We see that in these 6 seats it duly went up 18.68%.  But for the 13 seats where it is DPJ vs JCP vs LDP+ then the swing for JCP since 2012 is only 3.81% and on the flip side if its JIP vs JCP vs LDP+ then the JCP vote share swing is up 6.41% from 2012 which matches my narrative of anti-LDP anti-JIP voters going for JCP sometimes if DPJ is not in the race.  And in the 12 races where it is a 4 way contest between LDP+, JCP, JIP and DPJ (or DPJ rebel) then the JCP vote swing from 2012 is only 3.22% since there are non-JIP non-LDP alternatives.   It is interesting that where PLP is facing LDP+ and JCP alone the swing toward JCP is so large at 7.42%  This most likely has more to do with the perception that PLP is weak so voting JCP might be a better way to beat LDP+.

Seat type                          Count     JCP 12    JCP 14     Swing
PR                                                 7.52%   12.48%    +4.96%
FPTP                                 48       10.16%   16.21%    +6.05%
JCP vs LDP+                       5       15.94%   34.62%  +18.68%
JCP vs DPJ vs LDP+           13         9.45%   13.26%    +3.81%
JCP vs PLP vs LDP+             2        12.20%  19.62%    +7.42%
JCP vs JIP vs LDP+            15         8.82%   15.23%    +6.41%
JCP vs JIP vs DPJ vs LDP+  12        9.82%    13.04%    +3.22%
JCP vs FPG vs LDP+            1        12.20%   17.90%    +5.70%


We can do the same chart for LDP+ vote swings by type from 2012 in Kinki.  The baseline increase for LDP+ in PR is 7.03%.  I expected the FPTP swing the be smaller because in 2012 FPTP a lot of YP PR voters already voted for LDP+ in FPTP.  The larger than expected swing can be explained partly by the 5 districts where there is no non-JCP opposition to LDP+ where the swing of 10.7% does make sense.  As expected, where JIP is taking on LDP+ and JCP the leakage to LDP+ is smaller as represented by the only 3.3% swing from 2012 for LDP+.  Where DPJ+ is taking on LDP+ and JCP the leakage of JIP and YP votes for LDP+ is larger as represented by the 7.21% for LDP+ FPTP from 2012.  

Seat type                          Count   LDP+ 12  LDP+ 14     Swing
PR                                                36.52%   43.55%   +7.03%
FPTP                                 48       38.94%   46.15%    +7.21%
JCP vs LDP+                       5       54.68%    65.38%  +10.70%
JCP vs DPJ vs LDP+           13       39.11%   46.32%    +7.21%
JCP vs PLP vs LDP+             2       53.12%   58.82%    +5.70%
JCP vs JIP vs LDP+            15        43.55%   46.85%   +3.30%
JCP vs JIP vs DPJ vs LDP+  12        32.76%  37.43%    +4.67%
JCP vs FPG vs LDP+            1        27.40%   49.31%   +21.90%

[jaichind]

The two Democrats who switched from Your Party lost.

Actually 3 YP guys switched to DPJ  just before the election.  Namely Koichi Yamauchi (山内康一), Katsuhito Nakajima(中島克仁), and Yuji Kashiwakura (柏倉祐司).   Katsuhito Nakajima actually won his seat in Yamanashi (山梨) 1st district.