First take on the LDP’s election prospects

MTC has already covered off the importance of the headline support rates from the post-GDP shock Kyodo and Asahi opinion polls now out. A few more should come over the next few days.

In short, they show loss in faith in Abe, but not a catastrophic reduction in support for either the PM or the LDP at this point. If the election was held today, the likely result would be a pretty solid “victory” with the LDP-Komeito coalition easily getting over the 270 seat mark that LDP and Komeito strategists have identified as the minimum acceptable line for a reduction in the coalition’s House of Representatives majority.

Looking deeper into the Asahi poll (jp) certainly reveals enough doubts about Abe’s policy program that give a glimmer of hope for opposition parties that they may be able to push the coalition a bit harder. That is, at least in comparison with when serious discussion of a snap election first arose a few weeks ago.

Monday’s news on the economy does appear to have hurt Abe when compared to a NTV poll taken just two days prior to the announcement of 3rd quarter GDP figures when it was already clear that the consumption tax would be delayed and an election called. In this pre-Monday poll only 32 percent thought Abenomics had failed, 51 percent didn’t think so (66 percent didn’t think Abenomics was progressing according to another question in the same survey). In the post-Monday Asahi survey, while not an exactly equivalent question, we see failure rising above “success” with 39 percent believing Abe having failed, and 30 percent thinking it was a success, with assumedly 31 percent not sure.

62 percent of Asahi respondents are opposed to the election (18 percent agreeing) and 65 percent (25 percent accepting) said they did not accept Abe’s reasoning for calling the election (to go to the people in regards to delaying the consumption tax). In the Kyodo survey, 63.1 percent said they could not fathom the reason for the election, with 30 percent accepting the reasoning. 66 percent of respondents were opposed to the election in the aforementioned NTV poll, even when framed in terms of a delay in the consumption tax increase.

In terms of Abe saying he would definitely have to put the consumption tax up in April 2017, in the Asahi poll 49 percent did not evaluate positively this assertion, while 33 percent did. In a straight yes or no on putting the tax up in April 2017, 49 percent were against this, and 39 percent were in favour. Abe committing to the 2017 sales tax rise while going to people to get support for the delay and his economic policies will certainly send a confusing message for the public in terms of what kind of mandate he is asking for. One of the big challenges of this election will be how to interpret the results – of course Abe and Suga have their own views on what this election is and is not about – but for the rest of us it is unclear what it is precisely that Abe wants to claim to be able to do post-election (that he could not already do, legally or otherwise).

Perhaps the most encouraging result for the opposition comes from the question on whether the public believed that Abe’s economic policies were actually designed to improve wages and employment opportunities. Only 20 percent said the thought this was directly tied in to his economic policies, while 65 percent said they didn’t think so. This is the narrative that the opposition will increasingly play on during the next 3 weeks, and the bad GDP numbers only help this narrative.

While it may be harder for the opposition to get traction on this, despite its significance IMHO, the Asahi also asked a question relating to reform of the House of Representatives and reduction of its size. Abe agreed in 2012 to the consumption tax legislation and to cutting the House of Representatives before the next election as a symbol of government sacrifice. However, only 5 seats have been reduced to deal with the voter-value disparity (ineffectively, it is already over 2:1 again); equally important is that discussion on the electoral features of a new House of Representatives have only gotten to the stage of agreeing on a third-party mechanism for discussing options. When asked how much of a problem it was that Abe was calling an election before implementing the promised reduction in House of Representatives size, 39 percent of respondent said they thought it was a big problem, and 38 percent said it was problem to a degree.

In terms of the implications of the headline support rates, we will probably see a solid loss of seats in the single member districts (SMDs) by the LDP, but many of those candidates will likely be revived on the PR list. Notwithstanding some exogenous or unexpected event, I would expect to see the LDP gain around 20 to 25 seats on the PR list, picking up the more conservative supporters of parties like the now defunct JRP and Your Party.

According to my own perfunctory analysis on the SMDs, there are 29 districts that the opposition should easily take back from the LDP by the simple act of cooperating with each other, and there are a further 32 SMDs that should be in play if the opposition coordinates and runs a moderately successful campaign. Greater gains in a further 50 or more seats would only be likely if some serious unexpected game changer enters into the election, although in that case I would expect that to also impact upon the PR support rate as well. A lot depends on the opposition coordinating, however, although there are some signs that in some of the key SMD regions some tough decisions (jp) are being made (such as in Tokyo where somehow the LDP managed to win a majority of seats despite its candidates seldom winning more than 35 percent of the votes cast). There are also some signs that some of the more controversial members of the DPJ old guard are retiring, such as Sengoku Yoshito and Tanaka Makiko, which is probably only a benefit for the DPJ. As MTC notes, pretending the Kaieda Banri doesn’t exist might also be of help.

That said, at this stage I would expect the LDP-Komeito coalition to only lose 35 seats (including the five seats that no longer exist).

I hope to refine this analysis over the coming three weeks based on new developments.

 

 

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Striking while the Iron is (Very) Hot

In the very quickly put together post-Cabinet reshuffle surveys, both the Nikkei and Yomiuri (日) Shimbun have found 10 percent plus increases in support for Abe. Much of this appears to have to do with the appointment of five women in the cabinet roughly in line with Abe’s goal of having 30 percent of executive positions being occupied by women by 2020, and Abe leaving in place senior politicians such as Aso (consumption tax), Amari (TPP), Suga (everything) and Kishida (diplomacy, getting an APEC date with Xi) with jobs to do in the upcoming 13 months until the 2015 September LDP election.

Kyodo found slightly less dramatic results, but still recorded an increase (日) from 49.8% to 54.9% in cabinet support, and a healthier reduction in disapproval (日) of 10 percent. Mainichi bucked (日) the trend and recorded no change in support rate (47%) and a not particularly significant 2% decrease in disapproval.

Nevertheless, with the Yomiuri finding 64 percent support, and the Nikkei finding 60 percent support for the Cabinet, and 46% and 44% support for the LDP respectively, this will not put the rumours of a snap election to rest. Two surveys taken just prior to the cabinet reshuffle suggest, after all, that both Abe and the LDP will likely never look so good.

When survey organizations in Japan inquire into cabinet support, the follow-up question is usually about why the public supports (or does not) the cabinet. Party support is usually left as it is – a problem when more than 50% of the electorate across surveys is generally undecided about the party that they support. This can give general insights into whether it is policy, party, or personality that is driving up or down support, but is otherwise unhelpful. The Nikkei and the Asahi Shimbun decided to do things a little differently in August. I hope they continue. The Nikkei followed up the usual question on party support by asking the 61 percent of unaffiliated voters who they leaned towards in terms of preferences. Here are the results:

Currently, which political party do you support? (N=1039)

 

For those who don’t support a party or can’t say/don’t know, if you had to choose one party that you feel some affinity for, please indicate below (n=633)

Total of party supported/affinity (n=1039)

With the exception of the 2005 postal reform snap election, the 37 percent is not too far from what the LDP has usually achieved in the proportional representation vote component at election time over the last decade, whether it has done well or not in terms of receiving parliamentary seats. For the LDP to score in the mid-40s in line with the Nikkei and Yomiuri polls is an aberration in many ways if truly indicative. More importantly, there is practically no support, explicit or implicit, for any of the opposition parties. The DPJ seems close to dead as a political brand. They have only identified 131 candidates for the next election to stand in the 295 single member districts. The Unity Party and the JRP still have not settled on a way to work with each other, let alone proceeded on to figuring out an accommodation with the DPJ for contesting the single member districts; settling on an anti-LDP candidate for each of the single member districts is the fundamental priority for the opposition if it wishes to contest an election with the LDP, even an unpopular one, in any meaningful way.

The Asahi just a week before the cabinet change inquired into support for the cabinet. They found only 42% support (n=1581). They went further and essentially asked respondents whether they would be likely to shift their views on supporting/not supporting the cabinet.

For the 42% who support the Abe Cabinet:

I will support the Abe Cabinet from now on

42% (18% of total respondents)

My support for the Abe Cabinet is not guaranteed

52% (22% of total respondents)

For the 35% who do not support the Abe Cabinet:

I will not support the Abe Cabinet from now on

60% (21% of total respondents)

It is possible that I will support the Abe Cabinet 

34% (12% of total respondents)

This would suggest that while 52 percent of respondents either support Abe or would be willing to support him, only 18 percent of the electorate are “hard core” Abe supporters.

If we factor in that on average the Asahi usually finds around 5% less support for the LDP government than other surveys (without passing judgement on which is the “true” figure), then, all other things being equal and normal, a support rate of 55 percent plus should be seen as the maximal, high watermark support rate for Abe at this point in time.

If they are going to go for a snap election, they may as well do it now – notwithstanding it’d probably be seen as too clever by half.

The Secret Life of a Kiwi PhD Candidate

I will be starting today what I will endeavor to make a monthly feature. Growing out of my PhD, I have been tracking a large amount of polling information over the last few years and further back into the past in regards to Japanese politics and foreign policy. If the data exists, I likely know about it, if not have already worked it into a chart of some sort.

While most of this information and the associated analysis will be kept under wraps for the time being, in an effort to blog at least once a month I will provide a run down of the latest cabinet support rate data from over 11 different survey organizations, and analysis of any other survey questions from the previous month that piqued my interest.

The quality of the analysis will likely be directly correlated with the amount of time I have, but if you have a better take on the data than I do, then please feel free to continue the conversation in the comments.

Very Brief Methodology Note: I am using polls only from organizations that take a nationwide probability sample, preferably using two-stage stratified random sampling methods. These polls generally derive 1000 participants from a population sample, although some organizations such as the Asahi often acquire a sample size of up to 2000. Assuming a minimum sample size of around 900-1000 participants, the confidence interval for these surveys is approximately 2.2 percent at a 95 percent confidence level, and 2.9 percent at a 99 percent confidence level.  Most of these survey organizations’ surveys have participation rates of around 50 percent, which in contemporary surveying is actually quite robust. That said, this does not mean all polls are created equal and I will over time point out those polls which yield results that deviate consistently from the median and average poll results.