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

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

My current back of the envelope projection of a 2021 Lower House election (assuming it is in the Fall of 2021)

                   District    PR     Total
LDP                177       66     243
LDP rebels         2                   2 (will be retroactively nominated by LDP)
KP                    8        23       31
JRP                 10       13        23
DPP                  6         2         8
CDP                80       53      133
RS                   0         3          3
SDP                 1         1          1
JCP                  1        15        16
OPPN               4                     4 (3 pro-DPP, 1 pro-CDP)
------------------------------------------------
                   289       176     465

My assumptions are

1) JRP surge will peter outside of 大阪(Osaka) but JRP will gain in 大阪(Osaka) to take a bunch of LDP district seats
2) CDP-DPP-SDP will form alliances with JCP in marginal seats and help flip a bunch of LDP seats
3) RS and PHK novelty factor from 2019 will peter out and both will underperform 2019
4) Rump DPP reduced to being relevant in a few seats which are strongholds of its current MPs due to their personal vote.  DPP PR will be wiped out everywhere except for 東海(Tōkai) region where still have some support.
5) Rump SDP manage to hold on to their 2 seats (1 district, 1 PR) in 九州(Kyushu) due to their branch there and especially in 沖縄(Okinawa) staying on.  In the rest of Japan what is left of SDP mostly goes to CDP.

Net result is: Pro-Constitutional revision bloc LDP-KP-JRP drops to below 300 seats putting Constitutional revision off the table for good even if they somehow rope in DPP for such a project. With COVID-19 it is de facto dead but this election will make it de jure dead.

Thoughts on how Tohoku will end up?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What about 山梨県? What do you expect there?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

JCP at 13% sounds like an impressive result for them.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

How likely is it the result in Tokyo Assembly elections affects in a material way how the Olympics are handled?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Preliminary numbers for Japan's apportionment based on the census. The Kanto area will gain seats while rural prefectures continue to bleed seats.
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUA188FJ0Y1A610C2000000/

On the PR block Tokyo and South Kanto will gain 2 and 1 seats respectively while Tohoku, Hokuriku-Shinetsu and Chugoku will lose 1 seat each. I wonder if the number of seats will be increased again to placate rural members.

if so bad news for LDP and good news for CDP.  All the prefectures that are gaining seats are places where CDP is competitive and most of the prefecture losing seats are LDP strongholds.  Of course this will have to be for the the Lower House elections after this year's election.

Would the LDP just increase the size of the HoR to 482 or 483 members?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What is the latest possible day for the Lower House election?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Which is more of a political liability, likely speaking? A picture with neo-nazis, or a ex-Yakuza husband?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Isn't there the risk that Kono becomes LDP's Corbyn?

I know he is a moderate but isn't he a bit outside the mainstream for the LDP particularly on the economy?

There is some risk of Kono turning off core rural LDP voters with his more explicit free market approach.  Another danger is his anti-nuclear power position might drive some LDP voters toward DPP. On the flip side if there is a turnout surge Kono is in a good position to capture a good chunk of the marginal voters since most of them are urban anti-nuclear anti-transactional politics voters that otherwise will vote CDP or JRP once they do turn out.  Kono is also a good fit to capture some JRP voter as well.  So in a low turnout election a Kono led LDP will underperform but in a high turnout election a Kono let LDP will overperform. 

This video is long but is a speech Kono gave in English to a Japanese audience that outlines his political views back in 2012.  Since it was to a Japanese audience and not a foreign audience you get a better sense of his domestic policy views.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVfxZ8ojC3Q&list=FLBZqnIPPjMvxL1cq6anDjYw

Some of this stuff really gives me Koizumi Senior vibes.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What is the chance there is an Ishiba-Kono pact of sorts?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Noda Seiko is actually very interesting as she had a child very late in her life and in the middle of her career. She became pregnant at the age of 49 through an American egg donor (egg donor is still banned and frowned upon in Japan as far as I know). Her son has severe developmental disabilities and required many surgeries before being discharged from hospital.

One of the new CDP Tokyo assembly member is an unmarried single mother. I think there are a few more young mothers in the house now but most of them are related by marriage or blood to male politicians.

Holy smokes.  I recall reading this about a women LDP MP but did not realize it was Noda Seiko.  Good thing she has zero chance of winning LDP Prez.  If she became LDP Prez there will be a freak out at KP high command.  The KP is de facto controlled by the socially conservative Soka Gakkai married women division.  There is no way they would let something like this slide and demand KP high command do something about this state of affairs.

What else would likely follow if Seiko Noda somehow becomes LDP president?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What is the chance there is an Ishiba-Kono pact of sorts?

Looks like you were right and I was wrong.  Latest rumors are that Ishiba will not run and most likely will back Kono.  That might put Kono's lead in the LDP prefecture chapter vote to a point that he might win on the first round.

I wonder what Ishiba might get out of backing Kono. I was thinking perhaps a deal where Kono serves as long as he likes and he makes Ishiba his successor when he steps aside?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

What happens if Kishida wins?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Interesting that Kono is basically not much of a difference at all from Kishida in seat count at this point.
Would the support bases also be different? Kono doing better in urban Kansai and Kanto, Kishida in countryside areas?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Telling that Kishida won in the Chugoku region, isn't it?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Telling that Kishida won in the Chugoku region, isn't it?

Sure just like Takaichi did well in the Kinki area.  This is the favorite son effect.  Also note that Kono won a blowout victory in 鳥取(Tottori) despite it being in Chugoku region.  That is because of the Shigeru affect. 
 
 

What explains Yamagata and Aomori?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I just noticed Yamanashi.
Seems a bit of an outlier but there has to be some reason for it.
More generally I'm a bit surprised to see how little Kishida's "ideology" vs Kono's seems to have mattered.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

So the writs have already been dropped?
EDIT: post #21,000

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

"new style of Japanese capitalism"
What segments of the electorate is this calculated to appeal to? What segments is it likely to win him votes in?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

"new style of Japanese capitalism"
What segments of the electorate is this calculated to appeal to? What segments is it likely to win him votes in?

"New style of Japanese capitalism" is really just "old style social democracy" where Kishida's vision is to use Keynesian retribution to rebalance the economy.  I guess this appeals to the rural and Southern parts of Japan as well as DPP and KP voters.  But more importantly it is about having a vision.  Kishida knows the way to get around people getting tired of the old LDP politics is to come with a big idea, like Abe.  Only "New style of Japanese capitalism" does not sound particularly inspirational and sounds a lot like 2000 Al Gore slogan of "pragmatic idealism." 

So it's basically an unexciting but not catastrophically terrible slogan that Kishida is using to make it sound like he's a bold figure?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Anyone have a strong idea for where Tokyo-8 will end up? Nobuteru Ishihara has been there for eons, it would be interesting to see if he makes it or not.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Rural 群馬(Gunma) is the best example of LDP political dynasties.  群馬(Gunma) has 5 districts.  The LDP candidates in 4 of them are

群馬(Gunma) 1st: Grandson of a LDP PM, son of a LDP MP
群馬(Gunma) 3rd: Grandson of a LDP MP, son of a LDP MP
群馬(Gunma) 4th: Grandson of a LDP PM, son of a LDP PM
群馬(Gunma) 5th: Grandson of a LDP MP, son of a LDP PM

4 out of 5 candidates have between them 4 LDP PMs in their families.

Gunma-5 is a daughter, not a son.
Good point nonetheless.
Maybe one day Gunma-2 will be represented by Toshiro Ino's son.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Asahi
KP 81%
DPP 67%
LDP 66%
CDP 61%
JRP 61%
PNHK 57%
RS 46%
JCP 39%
SDP 38%

Yahoo!Japan
LDP 50%
CDP 40%
PNHK 40%
KP 30%
JRP 30%
JCP 20%
RS 20%
SDP 20%
DPP 10%

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

New Osaka-only poll.

Do you approve of the Kishida Cabinet?

Approve 42
Disapprove 33
No answer 25

Which party do you support?
JRP 30
LDP 27
CDP 10
KP 8
JCP 7
DPFP 1
RS 1
SDP 1
Other 1
PNHK 0
No answer/Refuse to answer 16

Is the CDP at only 10% a bad result?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Why is it that Ishin is so strong in Hyogo as opposed to Kyoto or Wakayama? Is it just that they're an overly urban party or is there some local dynamic I'm missing?

Also, in the event CDP were within range of forming a government (not saying that could happen this election) would they actually be likely to achieve anything or would they end up torn by internal dissent like the DPJ?

Yeah, Hyogo is next door to Osaka so JRP's Kinki regionalist messages do have resonance there.  Furthermore, as you pointed out, JRP also appeals to urban middle-class professionals and Hyogo is much more urban than the other rural prefectures in the Kinki area.

About one-fourth of Hyogo lives in Kobe alone. If I had to guess, that's increased, not decreased with time.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

One has to wonder how inefficient the LDP vote might be this time around. Doing better in Chugoku doesn't do much when you are losing most of the key marginals.