2023 Japan Unified local elections

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Kishida can't catch a break...

That he's lasted this long is like a small miracle. Kishida's cabinet rating has consistently been in the toilet, and you'd think that Taro Kono or someone like that would be starting to gather support from the factions. I cannot believe that they're perfectly content to keep him into the next election.

One has to wonder if there's a sense that not wanting to sit on the hot seat has led to them biding their time.

It seems likely, especially if the feeling is that the next election will be closer to 1993 than to 2009 in that the result will be messy, require painful coalitional politics, and leave the LDP in a more ambivalent position than plain and simple parliamentary opposition.

[GM Team Member and Deputy PPT WB]

Kishida can't catch a break...

That he's lasted this long is like a small miracle. Kishida's cabinet rating has consistently been in the toilet, and you'd think that Taro Kono or someone like that would be starting to gather support from the factions. I cannot believe that they're perfectly content to keep him into the next election.

One has to wonder if there's a sense that not wanting to sit on the hot seat has led to them biding their time.

It's a horrible time to be an incumbent pretty much anywhere in the world.

Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe the idea is that if Kishida is in their way to get control, then having him crash and burn is the plan?

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Kishida can't catch a break...

That he's lasted this long is like a small miracle. Kishida's cabinet rating has consistently been in the toilet, and you'd think that Taro Kono or someone like that would be starting to gather support from the factions. I cannot believe that they're perfectly content to keep him into the next election.

One has to wonder if there's a sense that not wanting to sit on the hot seat has led to them biding their time.

It's a horrible time to be an incumbent pretty much anywhere in the world.

Maybe I'm wrong, but maybe the idea is that if Kishida is in their way to get control, then having him crash and burn is the plan?

Imo the factional situation in the LDP is pretty unsettled. And good news for Kishida is that the biggest faction has little ability to do much right now for...obvious reasons.
Like Jaichind said, no one wants to be the first. The problem with being the stalking horse is that stalking horses don't get the prize, they enable others to get it. Kishida being there until Sept 2024 is less bad than one of their rivals getting it.

[Lachi]

Aoki index has now dropped below 50, things surely are terminal for Kishida now if it continues to drop further

[jaichind]

Kishida cabinet approval/disapproval curve continues to fall.

[jaichind]

The perennial anti-signal Economist  "The World Ahead 2024" predicts that in Japan "Kishida will lead the LDP to victory in an early 2024 election"

To be fair I think if an election is held LDP-KP will still hold a majority although it is very likely LDP itself will lose its majority position.

[CumbrianLefty]

The perennial anti-signal Economist  "The World Ahead 2024" predicts that in Japan "Kishida will lead the LDP to victory in an early 2024 election"

To be fair I think if an election is held LDP-KP will still hold a majority although it is very likely LDP itself will lose its majority position.

Well does an "early 2024" election look at all plausible on the current poll numbers?

[jaichind]

The perennial anti-signal Economist  "The World Ahead 2024" predicts that in Japan "Kishida will lead the LDP to victory in an early 2024 election"

To be fair I think if an election is held LDP-KP will still hold a majority although it is very likely LDP itself will lose its majority position.

Well does an "early 2024" election look at all plausible on the current poll numbers?

Not at all.  The LDP will never go for elections under these circumstances.  If his numbers do not improve most likely Kishida will be pushed out and replaced with another LDP PM with an interim LDP Prez election to try to turn around the numbers.   An early general election might be called before the 2024 Sept LDP Prez election to boost the position of the LDP PM in the leadership race.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

https://twitter.com/mrjeffu/status/1735129772567797847?
The plot thickens...

[Dr. Cynic]

The perennial anti-signal Economist  "The World Ahead 2024" predicts that in Japan "Kishida will lead the LDP to victory in an early 2024 election"

To be fair I think if an election is held LDP-KP will still hold a majority although it is very likely LDP itself will lose its majority position.

Well does an "early 2024" election look at all plausible on the current poll numbers?

Not at all.  The LDP will never go for elections under these circumstances.  If his numbers do not improve most likely Kishida will be pushed out and replaced with another LDP PM with an interim LDP Prez election to try to turn around the numbers.   An early general election might be called before the 2024 Sept LDP Prez election to boost the position of the LDP PM in the leadership race.

I agree. The time would certainly be bad because it's in the LDP's interest to wait until the electorate doesn't have a reason to care about showing up to vote. The trends over the years tell us that when the Japanese public is largely apathetic, it's good news for the LDP, but if they're motivated to come out and vote, the LDP could end up in a 2009 situation. Of course it's looking not like 2009 right now, but it could become another 1993 where there's a disorganized and fragmented opposition that somehow still wins.

Speaking of the opposition, Kenta Izumi's position as CDP leader is looking increasingly tenuous. He's pissed off Ichiro Ozawa, and if you know about Japanese politics, you'll know that he's not the kind of enemy you want to make because he's very cunning still, even in old age, and a dangerous opponent. Lo and behold, Yukio Edano, once known as the last hope of the Japanese center-left, is re-emerging. He's put forward an updated "Edano Vision" (a play on EdaVision that was created by Saburo Eda, who tried to reform the JSP with it, but the hard left ended up beating him back. Edano was actually a member of the Kan Cabinet with Eda's son) in preparation to challenge Izumi. Edano would probably be a better choice to lead the CDP in an election since Izumi just seems to be flailing about without any kind of direction, but we'll see, I guess.

[jaichind]

https://twitter.com/mrjeffu/status/1735129772567797847?
The plot thickens...

I think she is exaggerating.  It is very typical that the local politician is expected to attend all sorts of events of their constituents (like weddings funerals etc etc) and it is also expected that they bring some cash gift as part of that event.  Usually, the amounts we are talking about are not large and while it will put a financial burden on the local politician it should not reach the level of resources we are talking about in this scandal which by itself is also fairly small in terms of amount in the international context.

[jaichind]

New cabinet.  All 4 Abe faction ministers are gone.  Aso faction is now the largest in the cabinet.  Not sure how long this can last (having zero power-sharing with Abe faction)

[jaichind]

A good map of the ancestry of the various LDP factions. 
Since 2000 the Abe faction has been the strongest.  With the Abe faction now in decline perhaps there is going to be a revival of the old Tanaka faction (now 茂木(Motegi) faction) which had dominated Japanese politics in the 1970s-1990s.

[CascadianIndy]

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20231217/k00/00m/010/054000c

New Mainichi polling on Kishida cabinet approval, +/- w/ last survey in November:

Disapproval: 79 (+5)
Approval: 16 (-5)

Net: -63 (-10)

Lowest approval recorded for a PM since Kan bungled the 3/11 triple disaster, and the highest disapproval since polling began in 1947.

The only thing keeping Kishida alive right now is the fact that the main threat to him, the Abe faction, is in even greater disarray.

[CascadianIndy]

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20231217/k00/00m/010/097000c

The worst is still to come, it seems. LDP party support rate has collapsed to 17%, a drop of 7% in a month. CDP support has climbed 5% to 14%. This might be the closest lead the LDP's had since, well - 2012?

[CascadianIndy]

https://mainichi.jp/articles/20231217/k00/00m/010/123000c

Full numbers are out, and, uh.

Unaffiliated/Mutoha 31 (+5）

LDP 17 (-7)
CDP 14 (+5)
Ishin 13 (-1)
RS 7 (-)
JCP 5 (-1)
DPP 4 (-1)
Komei 3 (-)
DIY 2 (-)

...what?

[PSOL]

Why are the LDP commiting seppuku on themselves?
 

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The LDP definitely aren't going for an election anytime soon.

[jaichind]

Kishida cabinet approval/disapproval average curve moving downward toward 20

[jaichind]

Why are the LDP commiting seppuku on themselves?
 

The LDP clearly did not pick this state of affairs.  This entire Abe faction funding scandal has been out there as a topic since 2015 when the opposition made a big deal of it but it went nowhere because the official investigation was going so slowly that there was no smoking gun.  Abe's assassination set off a chain reaction where Abe was not around to use his power with the investigatory bureaucracy to slow down the pace of investigation which in turn finally led to smoking guys being revealed.   

So in that sense, Abe's assassin won in so many different ways

a) He caused the complete collapse of the Unification Church as an operation in Japan
b) He now caused the Abe faction to be permanently damaged

The reason the LDP is not that worried about this state of affairs is because the LDP has an internal ecosystem where it has several parties within a party.  The figure, most likely correct, is that if things get bad enough they will just dump Kishida and them blame all the problems on Kishida and giving the new LDP PM a clean slate with a honeymoon period to potentially fight another election where they will lose seats but not lose power.

[jaichind]

Nikkie PR poll (historically have a LDP and somewhat JRP lean)

LDP         27 (-5)
KP            3 (-1)
DIY           2
JRP         16 (+4)
DPP          3
ARFE         1   (DPP Kinki-based splinter)
CDP        13 (+1)
RS            5 (+1)
SDP          1
JCP           3



Greater Tokyo (Tokyo plus prefectures next to it)
LDP         30 (-3)
CDP         16 (+2)
JRP          12 (+3)

Kinki region (Osaka plus other prefectures near it)
JRP         37 (+11)
LDP        16  (-3)

JRP surge is mostly based on its home Kinki area.  This adds to doomsday for KP in the district seat there

[jaichind]

I went seat by seat and came up with my current back-of-the-envelope projection of what an early election result might look like

                District     PR        Total
LDP            156        59         215
KP                 5         19         24
DIY                0          1           1
JRP              26         36         62
ARFE             2           0           2  (DPP pro-JRP Kinki splinter)
DPP               5           8         13
CDP             87         38       125
RS                0           6           6
SDP              1           0           1
JCP               1           9         10
Ind.              6                            (5 opposition, 1 pro-LDP)

This is what I assumed it was going to be: LDP loses its majority by itself but LDP-KP still keeps the majority.

For the 289 district seats, I organized them into certain, likely, projected

             Certain       Certain+likely          Projected
LDP         125                145                      156
KP              2                    5                          5
JRP           19                  22                        26
ARFE          1                    1                          2
DPP            4                    5                          5
CDP          48                  61                        87                  
SDP            1                    1                         1
JCP             0                    1                         1
Ind.            3                    6                         6
------------------------------------------------------------
Total       203                 247                       289

I assume a pro-opposition lean for the tossups seats which could easily turn around if the current political climate changes.  So my projection is closer to the floor of the LDP which despite clearly problems still have a lot of quality candidates and core support base at the local level.

[jaichind]

Updated average PR polling



PR vote average (change from 3 weeks ago)
LDP     27.1 (-2.3)
KP        4.2 (-1.2)
DIY       1.9 (-0.1)
PNHK    0.0 (-0.1)
JRP      14.5 (+1.8 )
DPP       2.9 (-0.5)
CDP    13.0 (+0.5)
RS        4.3 (+0.5)
SDP      1.4 (+0.2)
JCP       3.5 (-0.1)

Big drops for LDP and KP to the benefit of JRP and CDP as well as RS to a less extent.

[jaichind]

https://twitter.com/RinNishimura/status/1736618038571753918

I still think these campaign fiance laws are absurdity restrictive and they are getting worked up over amounts that are tiny. 

[jaichind]

Average level of support for LDP since 2012.  It has been headed downward continuously since Abe's assassination.