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

[jaichind]

With 89.70% of the vote counted PR is

PNHK now very likely to win a seat.  DPP and RS doing better than expected which came at the expense of CDP and JCP.

LDP+KP PR vote share most likely will be below 2013 levels

Does not look like seat count will change from here.

          Vote       Seat       My predicted vote share
LDP   35.52%     19                      35.5%
KP     13.10%      7                       13.4%
JRP     9.81%      5                       10.1%
PNHK  1.95%      1 !!!                    1.5%
HRP    0.40%                                0.5%
DPP    6.93%      3                        4.8%
CDP  15.87%      8                      18.9%
Olive   0.33%                                0.5%
RS      4.48%     2                         2.3%
SDP    2.02%     1                         2.1%
LAB    0.16%                                0.2%
JCP     8.90%     4                         9.9%
EP      0.53%                                0.3%   (used to be NPB now Euthanasia Party)

[jaichind]

NHK PR count is ahead now so with 93% of the vote counted

PNHK wins a seat.  DPP and RS doing better than expected which came at the expense of CDP and JCP.

LDP+KP PR vote share most likely will be below 2013 levels

Does not look like seat count will change from here.

          Vote       Seat       My predicted vote share    My predicted seats
LDP   35.36%     19                      35.5%                      19
KP     13.10%      7                       13.4%                       7
JRP     9.99%      5                       10.1%                       5
PNHK  1.96%      1 !!!                    1.5%
HRP    0.40%                                0.5%
DPP    6.90%      3                        4.8%                        2
CDP  15.76%      8                      18.9%                      10
Olive   0.34%                                0.5%
RS      4.52%     2                         2.3%                       1
SDP    2.05%     1                         2.1%                       1
LAB    0.16%                                0.2%
JCP     8.93%     4                         9.9%                       5
EP      0.53%                                0.3%   (used to be NPB now Euthanasia Party)

[jaichind]

With 97% of the vote counted

          Vote       Seat       My predicted vote share    My predicted seats
LDP   35.37%     19                      35.5%                      19
KP     13.12%      7                       13.4%                       7
JRP     9.84%      5                       10.1%                       5
PNHK  1.96%      1 !!!                    1.5%
HRP    0.41%                                0.5%
DPP    6.95%      3                        4.8%                        2
CDP  15.78%      8                      18.9%                      10
Olive   0.34%                                0.5%
RS      4.52%     2                         2.3%                       1
SDP    2.10%     1                         2.1%                       1
LAB    0.16%                                0.2%
JCP     8.92%     4                         9.9%                       5
EP      0.53%                                0.3%   (used to be NPB now Euthanasia Party)

[jaichind]

Kyodo story on RS

UPDATE1: New group led by actor-turned-politician makes strong showing
TOKYO, July 22 Kyodo
(EDS: RECASTING WITH TWO CANDIDATES' WIN)
A newly created anti-establishment political group Reiwa Shinsengumi, led by actor-turned-politician Taro Yamamoto, made a surprisingly strong showing in Sunday's upper house election, with two severely disabled candidates winning seats.
Yasuhiko Funago, 61, became the first person with Lou Gehrig's disease to be elected as a member of Japan's Diet. Another candidate Eiko Kimura, 54, with cerebral palsy also won a seat.
It is the first time since the current electoral system was introduced in 2001 that a group which is not treated as a major political party in relevant election-related laws has won a parliamentary seat under the proportional representation system.
The group led by the 44-year-old antinuclear activist has called for the abolition of the consumption tax, which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party plans to raise in October, and promised financial relief for households, such as by raising minimum wages.
Yamamoto has also criticized the LDP, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, for failing to lift Japan out of deflation.
He said he wants the public to give more thought to what kinds of support people with disabilities require to improve the quality of their lives, citing education reform as an example.
Yamamoto placed Funago and Kimura in the first and second positions on his group's proportional representation list to ensure it could highlight disability issues if it won seats.
Yamamoto told a press conference that it is important for those with severe illnesses or disabilities to be part of national politics and his party wanted to create "a society that doesn't cut anyone off."
Yamamoto placed himself third on the group's proportional representation list.
Kimura has been disabled since she was 8-months-old, and now uses a wheelchair. She is a long-time activist who has argued for people with disabilities to be enabled to participate fully in society and live as much as possible outside of institutions.
"I am fighting every day to realize a society in which people with disabilities can live, believing that such a society is one in which everyone can live in comfort," she says on her profile page on Reiwa Shinseigumi's website.
Yamamoto left a party he jointly led with veteran lawmaker Ichiro Ozawa to create Reiwa Shinsengumi three months before the upper house election.
The group has proved popular, with Yamamoto campaigning in jeans and a T-shirt and encouraging his audience to ask him questions by passing a microphone.
Reiwa Shinsengumi raised around 300 million yen ($2,784,870) in campaign funds online within a matter of weeks and its volunteers numbered at least 15,000 by early July.
Six years ago, Yamamoto got more than 660,000 votes in the Tokyo constituency.
Yamamoto became known for his antinuclear activities following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis. As an independent upper house member in 2013, he was reprimanded for handing a letter on the nuclear disaster to then-Emperor Akihito at a garden party, triggering criticism that his action could amount to political exploitation of the emperor.
Toru Hasuike, 64, the brother of Kaoru Hasuike who was abducted by North Korea, also ran for Reiwa Shinsengumi but did not win a seat. The former head of secretariat of a group representing family members of Japanese abductees, Hasuike told reporters in May that he shared Yamamoto's antinuclear stance.

[jaichind]

Asahi exit poll shows that SDP and JCP PR voters are mostly older than 50 while RS is much more middle age and even youth heavy.

[jaichind]

For 1- member district the vote share is similar to 2016 levels

LDP                  52.71%
Right                  0.75%
PNHK                 3.64%
HRP                    0.39%
LAB                    0.10%
Left                    0.10%
--------------------------------------
CDP                 10.28%
DPP                   6.69%
OPPN               24.93%
JCP                    0.42%
---------------------------------------
Grand Alliance  42.31% (CDP DPP SDP JCP alliance)

The PR vote distribution in this set of seats are

LDP-KP             52.74%  
Center-Left       30.57% (CDP DPP RS SDP LAB Olive)
Third Pole           8.79% (JRP PNHK HRP)
JCP                    7.39%
EP                     0.36%

If we do a Right/Left breakdown we have for district 57.34/42.51 and for PR 61.53/37.96

In 2016 it was where the LDP vs Grand Alliance vote share are almost identical

LDP                  53.36%
LDP rebels          0.30%
ORA                   0.57%
HRP                   2.97%
ex-YP                 0.32%
NPB                   0.06%
--------------------------------
DP                    22.75%
Oppn Ind.         19.17%
JCP                     0.50%
--------------------------------
Grand alliance   42.42%  (DP PLP SDP JCP) backed candidates

The PR vote distribution in this set of seats are

LDP-KP             53.11%  
ORA+                8.52%    (ORA PJK NPR)
HRP                   0.82%
NPB                   1.11%
DP+                 27.70%   (DP PLP SDP VPA)
JCP                    8.74%

If we do a Right/Left breakdown we have for district 57.51/42.42 and for PR 62.45/36.44

[jaichind]

Asahi exit poll of party support

LDP   41
KP      7
JRP    7
DPP    4
CDP  15
RS      2
SDP    1
JCP    7
Other 1 (PNHK ?)
Ind.  15

The Ind. vote lean LDP for the youth and leaned CDP and JCP for the older voters


LDP-KP support adds up to 48.  The LDP-KP PR vote will end up being a bit higher than 48%. With a good chunk of Ind. vote going to LDP or KP PR it seems clear some LDP-KP supporters failed to vote LDP-KP on the PR slate.  Most likely for JRP.  Similar for CDP supporters.  CDP PR vote will be a bit less than 16%.  If CDP support is 15% and a good chunk of Ind. voters voted CDP for PR then part of the CDP supporters failed to vote CDP on the PR slate.  Mostly for DPP and RS.

[jaichind]

ANN exit polls ended being very accurate

[jaichind]

Jiji exit poll on how independents voted in 2016 2017 and 2019 on PR vote

               2016     2017     2019
LDP         26.1       22.7      25.5
KP            7.2        6.5        6.8
ORA/JRP  12.8       8.8       12.4
HP                      19.6
DPP                                   6.2
DP           25.3
CDP                    28.0       21.0
RS                                     9.8
SDP                                   2.4
JCP         12.3      7.9          8.7
 

[jaichind]

With all of the PR vote counted

          Vote       Seat       My predicted vote share    My predicted seats
LDP   35.37%     19                      35.5%                      19
KP     13.05%      7                       13.4%                       7
JRP     9.80%      5                       10.1%                       5
PNHK  1.97%      1 !!!                    1.5%
HRP    0.40%                                0.5%
DPP    6.95%      3                        4.8%                        2
CDP  15.81%      8                      18.9%                      10
Olive   0.34%                                0.5%
RS      4.55%     2                         2.3%                       1
SDP    2.09%     1                         2.1%                       1
LAB    0.16%                                0.2%
JCP     8.95%     4                         9.9%                       5
EP      0.54%                                0.3%   (used to be NPB now Euthanasia Party)

RS and DPP over-performed at the expense of CDP and JCP.  PNHK was able to eat into enough of the protest vote of HRP and EP to win a seat.   I generally go the vote share of the different blocs correctly.

                       Result          My prediction
LDP-KP             48.43%           48.90% (LDP KP)
Center-Left       29.90%           28.80% (CDP DPP RS SDP Olive LAB)
Third Pole         12.18%           12.10% (JRP PNHK HRP)
JCP                    8.95%             9.90%

Main deviation between the blocs for me is that RS took about 1% from JCP than I had expected.  The results follow the trend that viable or near viable new parties over-perform  (RS and PNHK) just like CDP over-performed in 2017.  If history is any guide both RS and PNHK will fall a bunch from these levels next election. 

It is clear that lower turnout also include lower turnout of LDP voters as well and not just Center-Left voters.  Still lower turnout clearly hurt CDP the most.  DPP is more depending on the rural Center-Left vote which it seems held up more and as a result over-performed. 

[jaichind]

My computed district vote share

LDP            39.77%
KP               7.77%
IND(Right)   0.45%
JRP              7.28%
HRP             0.37%
PNHK           3.02% !!!
DPP             6.47%
CDP           15.79%
Olive            0.18% (Anti-nuclear Center-Left)
RS               0.43%
LAB              0.15% (New Left)
SDP             0.38%
IND(Left)     0.13%
JCP              7.37%
OPPN           9.87% (Opposition joint candidate with JCP support except for 広島(Hiroshima))
EP               0.43%

PNHK at 3.02% along with HRP at 0.37% shows the scale of the protest vote.

[jaichind]

Do you know a page where I can see the PR vote breakdown by prefecture?

Also, Tokushima-Kochi seems a bit closer than I would expect given the opposition candidate had JCP background. Maybe it could have been competitive with, say, a CDP candidate?

http://www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000634956.xls

Has the breakdown vote by prefecture.  There is a tab for each party on the PR list.  It is not easy to read as it gives results by each PR list candidate with the sum of all such candidates by party and vote by party at the end of each tab.

[jaichind]

I did an initial scan of the PR vote share for RS and PNHK by prefecture.  RS is stronger in urban areas relative to rural areas.  PNHK is stronger in the North than the South.  RS clearly draws from JCP and CDP supporters of 2017.  The PNHK PR voter are protest voters but it seems more likely than not to be ex-Center-Left voters.  The much larger PNHK district vote are more likely to be disgruntled LDP voters on top of the PNHK PR vote.

[jaichind]

岩手(Iwate) Opposition margin over LDP.  The level of polarization  is quite high with Ozawa's district very heavy for opposition and the rest of the prefecture lean LDP.

[jaichind]

Looking at the PR vote share by prefecture one trend is that relative performance of LDP in rural prefecture increased and likewise decreased in rural prefectures.  So the "lean" of rural prefectures in favor of LDP grew significantly to a record level.  Likewise the "lean" of urban prefectures in favor of JRP JCP and the Center-Left parties also grew to record levels (at least for JRP.)

It seems what took place was marginal JRP CDP JCP rural voters did not turnout while marginal LDP urban voters did not turnout which led to a fall of overall turnout to very low levels.  If so then the United Opposition got lucky that they won 10 out of the mostly rural 32 1- member districts since relative LDP strength grew there.  The KP PR and some LDP PR defections to the United Opposition and PNHK did LDP in despite a stronger PR performance in these rural areas.

The Upper House election system is "rigged' in the sense that in areas that LDP is strong (rural areas) it is all 1- member seats which makes it FPTP.  In areas of relative LDP weakness it is multi-member district which makes it more like PR.  In addition LDP-Third Pole tactical voting is more effective than Center-Left-JCP tactical voting in these multi-member districts.

[jaichind]

It seems that in the 32 1- member districts the Center-Left-JCP Grand alliance was not the only "grand  alliance" that were formed.  In seems that PNHK and HRP also formed a tactical alliance where only one of the two parties would contest.   PNHK contested 24 1- member seats and HRP contested 3 1- member districts.   5 were not contested by neither (富山(Toyama), 石川(Ishikawa), 和歌山(Wakayama), 佐賀(Saga), and 鹿児島(Kagoshima).  It seems that this de facto alliance want to corner the protest vote and had a seat adjustment so they did not compete with each other for the protest vote.  Neither contesting 鹿児島(Kagoshima) makes sense as the LDP rebel running will most likely pick up the protest vote.  Not sure why PNHK-HRP did not run in the other 4 1- member district.    

This PNHK-HRP alliance won on average 4.61% of the vote in the 27 1- member seats they contested.   This alliance did not hold up in the multi-member seats.  HRP ran in some of them and clearly hurt PNHK.  In the 7 multi-member seats that PNHK ran without HRP running PNHK won on average 3.52% of the vote.  For the 6 multi-member seats that PNHK with HRP in the fray PNHK won on average 2.31% of the vote with HRP winning on average 0.61% of the vote so HRP clearly eats into the PNHK vote share and in many ways PNHK and HRP have similar appeal to protest voters as well as some disgruntled LDP voters.

[jaichind]

Out of the 9 OPPN winners: 2 will most likely caucus with CDP, 6 will most likely caucus with DPP, and 1 is really a member of 沖縄(Okinawa) based OMSP.  

[jaichind]

Abe vows to push forward constitutional change despite failure of pro-revision forces to win Upper House supermajority

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/07/22/national/politics-diplomacy/abe-vows-push-forward-constitutional-change-despite-failure-pro-revision-forces-win-upper-house-supermajority/#.XTZJBehKiUk

Abe seems to still want to work with Opposition parties to achieve Constitutional Revision in 2020.

[jaichind]

New seat count in Upper House

LDP  113
KP     28
CDP   32
DPP   21
JCP    13
JRP    16
SDP     2
OPPN 13
RS       2
PNHK   1
Others 4



A more detailed chart by class would be
      
        2016 class  2019 class  Total
LDP        56            57         113
KP         14            14            28
JRP          6            10           16
YP           1              0             1  渡辺 喜美(Watanabe Yoshimi) reactivated 1 man YP
VP           2              0             2  国民の声(Voice of People) ex-DP open to Constitutional Revision
PNHK       0             1             1 I suspect open to Constitutional Revision
IND         1              0            1 ex-DP open to Constitutional Revision
DPP       15             6           21
OPPN      4              9           13 (some caucus with DPP others caucus with CDP)  
CDP       15           17           32
RS          0             2             2
SDP        1              1            2
JCP         6              7          13
-------------------------------------------------
Total     121         124         245

LDP loses majority party status.  In 2016 LDP regained it for the first time since 1989 but after 3 years lost it again.

Constitutional Revision requires 2/3 or 164 seats.
LDP+KP+JRP+YP =  158
If you added in VP ex-DP IND and PNHK you get 162 which is 2 short.

Just getting to this 162 would require all sorts of political games and capital.  As mentioned before trying to get DPP on board would be the only viable option left to Abe.

And waiting for 2022 Upper House elections would be even worse.  3 ex-DP MPs elected in 2016 that are open to Constitutional Revision are really by themselves outside DPP and CDP circles which means they will not be re-elected.  So LDP-KP-JRP will have to gain 3 seats on top of 2016 election results just to stay even.

[jaichind]

Jiji exit poll for 18-19 year and PR slate

LDP   41.0
KP     10.8
JRP     7.0
DPP    5.0
CDP  13.9
RS     7.4
SDP   0.8
JCP    5.0

LDP and RS clearly over-perform in this demographic although some of the LDP vote for PR might be KP PR voters in disguise

[jaichind]

Post election Kyodo poll

Abe Cabinet approve/disapprove 48.6/38.2
Abe getting 4 term as LDP president approve/disapprove  40.6/52.6
Plan to increase consumption tax approve/disapprove 39.8/55.9
Constitutional Revision approve/disapprove  32.2/56.0
Pro-Constitutional Revision forces failure to win 2/3 majority approve/disapprove 29.8/12.2

[jaichind]

Post election Kyodo poll

Abe Cabinet approve/disapprove 48.6/38.2
Abe getting 4 term as LDP president approve/disapprove  40.6/52.6
Plan to increase consumption tax approve/disapprove 39.8/55.9
Constitutional Revision approve/disapprove  32.2/56.0
Pro-Constitutional Revision forces failure to win 2/3 majority approve/disapprove 29.8/12.2

Would delaying the consumption tax increase would lead into more deficit or budget cuts?

No, that will just kick the deficit can down the road.  Of course the USA is no different.  Back in 2014 when the consumption tax went up there was a mini-recession which is why there is a lot of reservation and tension about this tax increase.  The Abe government has all sort of short term spending that balances out the impact of the tax increase so what took place in 2014 is unlikely to happen again.

[jaichind]

PNHK leader 立花孝志(Tachibana Takashi) 18 minute official campaign statement given on NHK which is mostly attacking NHK and repeating his slogan "Crush NHK" every 30 seconds or so has over 3.1 million views

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRi4od_Thus&t=764s

[jaichind]

Nikkei analysis of voting by age group came out with results if only certain age groups voted.

                         LDP-KP       Opposition
18-19                  71                 53
20-29                  72                 52
30-39                  73                 51
40-49                  71                 53
50-59                  71                 53
60-69                  64                 60
70+                    73                 51
Actual result        71                 53

The 60-69 age group anti-LDP lean is clear

[jaichind]

Various post election polls do not show a bump in Abe Cabinet approval