Japan 2021 Tokyo Metropolitan assembly elections (July) and Lower House Election Oct 31st

[Logical]

Another projection this time from the Weekly Post. Includes seat by seat prediction. Has the LDP at ~240 seats like others. Appears that everyone is herding for now. What's perplexing to me is that the consensus has the DPP at 5 PR seats. I can only see them winning 2 PR seats at most (Tokai & Kansai). DPP simply does not have that much strength or organization elsewhere.
https://www.news-postseven.com/archives/20211015_1699503.html?IMAGE&PAGE=2


I wonder when the massive election polls from the media consortium starts getting released

[Logical]

c) Are you able to find the archive link for the most recent 週刊文春(Shūkan Bunshun) projections ?  I really want to take a look at their seat by seat projections.

The Bunshun's seat by seat projections
https://archive.is/H3cmm

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https://www.jiji.com/jc/article?k=2021101501050&g=elc&ref=2021syu
The LDP has resolved the problem of competing conservative candidates in most districts.
In Tokyo 15th they have decided to endorse two candidates, a pro-LDP independent favored by the local branch and the formerly opposition aligned independent PR incumbent. If either of them wins, they will get retroactively nominated as the official LDP candidate.
The Osaka LDP kingpin who wanted to run in Komeito's Osaka 3rd was nominated in the Kansai PR block. So basically the LDP bribed him with one sure seat to maintain good working cooperation with Komeito.

[Logical]

While not exactly dynastic, something I notice when reading bios of JCP candidates is that a lot of them are related by blood or marriage to fellow JCP member/politicians. In fact it's not uncommon for them to boast that their parents and spouses are active in the party as well.

[Logical]

Nikkan Sports also has 2 projections out. The first by journalist Kakutani Koicihi. His is the first I found to predict 2 JCP district seats.
https://www.nikkansports.com/general/nikkan/news/202110180000080.html


And a second by journalist Suzuki Tetsuo. I'm not sure where Reiwa is supposed to win a district seat though.
https://www.nikkansports.com/general/nikkan/news/202110180000082.html

[Logical]

We do have a new NHK poll however. (Oct 15-17)
https://www.nhk.or.jp/senkyo/shijiritsu/

Party ID (changes from Oct 8-10 poll)
LDP   38.8 (-2.4)
KP      3.9 (-0.2)
CDP   6.6 (+0.5)
JCP    2.8 (+0.1)
JRP    2.3 (+0.5)
DPP   1.0 (+0.3)
SDP   0.6 (-)
RS     0.6 (+0.4)
NP     0.1 (-)
None 36.2 (+0.1)

Cabinet approvals
Approve     46 (-3)
Disapprove 28 (+4)

[Logical]

Table on total number of candidates

1051 candidates in all. 857 district candidates and 194 PR only candidates.  I am confused on how there could be 14 minor party PR only candidates when only 9 parties have PR lists.

There's a bunch of minor parties that also runs in the PR bloc like far right Japan First Party and New Party Yamato, both in Tokyo.
https://www.nhk.or.jp/senkyo/database/shugiin/2021/

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https://www.nikkan-gendai.com/articles/view/life/296251
"Leaked" LDP internals by Nikkan Gendai. No topline numbers but they show districts where LDP candidates are neck and neck with their opponents. According to the article itself, JRP is slightly ahead in Osaka 4th, 7th ,9th, 12th and 19th district. The opposition candidate is ahead in Saitama 1st. Most surprising thing is Ozawa Ichiro's name in this list though. It might explain why he chose to spend the first day campaigning in his district instead of touring the country for the first time since he was first elected in 1969.
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/70eb8071a74b8ac28d547697ef24539d6100df66

[Logical]

Asahi magazine had two separate projections from two sperate analysists that are very similar.  Hopefully I find their seat-by-seat projection.

They have LDP at 239 and 243 separately which is just more herding with the rest of the projections. One of them has JCP with a second district seat which I assume has to be 京都(Kyoto) 1st.  Both has 7 independent winners which should be 4-5 of them are pro-LDP so you can add 4-5 to the LDP totals they have.

It's here :
https://dot.asahi.com/print_image/index.html?photo=2021101900043_2&image=3
Nothing really stands out to me. It does appear that in the absence of reliable polls the analysts are choosing not to stray from the consensus.

[Logical]

https://www.asahi.com/senkyo/shuinsen/2021/votematch/#/
2021 Japanese vote compass thingy from Asahi. My results:

DPP 75%
CDP 72%
KP 68%
NP 68%
JRP 66%
LDP 62%
JCP 60%
RS 59%
SDP 56%

[Logical]

If you go seat by seat from the Yomiuri writeup you get

             District         PR          Total
LDP          163            68          231
KP               8            25            33
JRP            12            17            29
DPP             5              4              9
CDP           89            44          133
RS              0              2              2
SDP            1              1              2
JCP             1             15           16
Ind.           10                           10 (5 pro-LDP 5 pro-Opposition)
--------------------------------------------------
              289            176         465

LDP barely misses majority although with the 5 pro-LDP independents at least 3 will be retroactively nominated to get the LDP the majority.  Also among the tossups there are a good deal more CDP ahead than LDP ahead so this projection is most likely a floor for LDP and they should win 3-4 more district seats that this chart.

Still to be in the 230s is a disappointing projection for Kishida.

On the other hand, if you believe that Kishida's honeymoon effect will continue to dissipate until election day then things could get worse for the LDP.

[Logical]

Nikkei released its seat by seat projection today. They are predicting a complete Osaka LDP wipeout. JRP are ahead in 14 districts, CDP down to 1. The rest of the projection is barely more favourable to the LDP than Yomiuri's, but then again they use the same raw data sets with their own in house weightings so make of it what you will.

[Logical]

Kyodo poll on 東北 (Tohoku) PR bloc

                      2021 poll      2019        2017
LDP                    34.9         40.1         34.6
KP                        5.7         10.8         11.0
PNHK                    1.1          1.8
JRP                       4.7          4.5          3.0
DPP/HP                 2.9          9.7         21.7
CDP                    23.3        16.5         18.1
RS                       2.2          3.9
SDP                     1.5          3.2          2.5
JCP                      7.8          8.2          7.4

LDP-KP               40.6        50.9         45.6
Center-Left+JCP  37.7        41.5         49.7 (if one counts HP as Center-Left)

A little better for LDP-KP relative to 2017 when compared to 北関東 (North Kanto).  Still adjusting for some of 2017 HP PR vote going to JRP 2021 looks more like 2017 than 2019.

May I enquire on how you have the 2017/2019 percentages for PR blocs? Neither English nor Japanese Wikipedia seem to have them.

The ministry of the interior website has the complete results helpfully compiled in spreadsheet.
2017 : https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/senkyo_s/data/shugiin48/
2019 : https://www.soumu.go.jp/senkyo/senkyo_s/data/sangiin25/

[Logical]

Shizuoka byelection turnout

Early voting 15.04%

Up to 11 00   9.91%
Up to 14 00  17.98%
Up to 16 00  22.37%

Looks like turnout will exceed 40%. Last time in 2019 final turnout was 50.49%.

[Logical]

Hamamatsu City and Western Shizuoka where the pro opposition governor was strong in May had 3-4% higher turnout so I'm not too surprised. What should frighten the LDP is they only won about 20% of the independent vote.

[Logical]

What can LDP do:  I think they can only double down on "Communist !! Communist !! Communist !!".  It is too late to come up with some positive messages such as economic growth or economic redistribution or make Japan influential on the world stage.  To come out with a new theme like that the last week of the election will seem fake and opportunist.  They can only go after CDP on their alliance with JCP which they have been doing the last couple of weeks and hope that the 静岡(Shizuoka) result shows that there is a significant anti-LDP anti-JCP vote out there that voted against the LDP in 静岡(Shizuoka) because the JCP ran separately but would vote LDP once they see that the CDP and JCP are in alliance in said district.

They've been endlessly screaming "RIKKEN KYOSANTO! KYOSANTO!! KYOSANTO!!!" for weeks now but the needle has actually moved against them. So I doubt doing it louder would help. The only hope for the LDP is another foreign policy crisis like a provocation by North Korea or China.

[Logical]

New NHK poll out (Oct 22-24)

Party ID (changes from Oct 15-17 poll)
LDP     38.6 (-0.2)
KP        4.3 (+0.5)
CDP      8.0 (+1.2)
JCP       2.9 (+0.1)
JRP       3.5 (+1.2)
DPP      0.8 (-0.2)
RS        0.8 (+0.2)
SDP      0.7 (+0.1)
NP        0.2 (+0.1)
None   31.4 (-4.8 )

Cabinet approvals
Approve      48 (+2)
Disapprove  27 (-1)

Already voted           9
Will definitely vote   52
Total                       61 (+5)

Implies turnout will be around 57-60%.
Interesting crosstabs on the turnout question; 68% of LDP-KP supporters, 78% of Opposition supporters and 47% of independents answered "Will definitely vote" or "Voted early". Shows that the opposition base is more enthused this time.

[Logical]

For some reason Asahi usually releases the best projections for the LDP while Yomiuri and Nikkei does the opposite.

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Turnout by age in 2017, for reference.

[Logical]

For some reason Asahi usually releases the best projections for the LDP while Yomiuri and Nikkei does the opposite.

Was going to write about this.  It happens in almost every election.  The right-wing media (Nikkei, Yomiuri, FNN) always have the most anti-LDP projections while the left-wing media (Kyodo, Mainichi, Asahi) always have the most pro-LDP projection.

This is because of
a) Mostly overcompensation for house effects  
b) Perhaps try to create a sense of crisis in the minds of their readers so they go out and out and vote although I think it usually has the opposite effect for anti-LDP voters

There is a story from the 2014 Lower House election that shows b) is unlikely to be a big factor.  After the Ashai people crunched their numbers which shows a LDP landslide victory the editor of Ashai was so depressed that he considered not printing the projection and had to be talked into it by his staff.

A theory from me. The respondents are purposely trolling the media companies. At the start of every survey the survey taker would say for which news media the survey taken for. When an LDP inclined media company is listed, opposition supporters would exaggerate their likelihood to vote and is more motivated to complete the survey until the end to "own the cons" so to speak. This works both ways. It could explain why the error is so persistent throughout the years.

[Logical]

The new version of this leaked LDP poll came out with a new polling results from a couple of days ago in most of the seats (concentrated in those which are close)

https://www.nikaidou.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/10_22-24_.pdf

If anything the LDP gained a few seats in terms of leads although some of the weird results in both directions went away.    If you take the leads implied in this most recent version it sort of implies the LDP will be around 240 seats.

It does have JCP slightly ahead in both Kyoto 1st.

Interesting numbers. The overall picture is closer to the Nikkei/Yomiuri projection than Asahi. Not going to put too much stock in it though given the manner it was "leaked" and the unexplained methodology.

I checked the website you linked to and found more leaked surveys.
Detailed FNN survey results (Oct 23-24): https://www.nikaidou.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/fnn1023_24.pdf
CDP internal polling (Oct 8-10): https://www.nikaidou.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/20211010.pdf

[Logical]

New Kyodo poll (Oct 23-26). LDP at 240-250 which is pretty positive. Seat by seat breakdowns are available and being released by local media.
https://nordot.app/825821686367551488


Nikkei/Yomiuri is on the field with their final poll. We should have the results by the 28th at the earliest.
https://www.nikkei-r.co.jp/news/information/id=8112

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Weekly Bunshun's final projection.
https://archive.md/crr56

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https://www.jma.go.jp/bosai/map.html#5/34.5/137/&contents=forecast&lang=en
JMA weather forecast for the next 3 days. Mostly sunny on Friday, clear and sunny everywhere on Saturday and cloudy but not rainy on Sunday. Temperatures are actually quite warm for late October. In 2017 there was a typhoon that depressed turnout.

[Logical]

We can say with certainty how turnout will change when we get the latest early voting data either tonight or tomorrow. Meanwhile here's a table of turnout in each prefecture and how they rank in 2017 and 2014. Osaka and Hyogo had abysmal turnout in 2017, so the JRP has a lot of upside in the Kansai PR block if they can pump up the turnout here.