
New opposition parties still lagging behind the LDP—but many voters undecided
October 6, 2017Author: Tobias Harris
Categories: Japan Political Pulse
With four days until the campaign for Japan’s October 22 general election officially begins, the outlook for the vote is still extremely fluid. Polls show significant numbers of undecided voters, but also suggest that Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike’s newly formed Party of Hope is struggling to connect with independent voters.
Tags: Abe, cdpj, dp, DPJ, foreign policy, japan political pulse, jpp, Komeito, LDP, Liberal Democratic Party, party of hope, Politics, polls, public opinion, security, Shinzo Abe, tobias harris, yuriko koike

Abe’s comeback and the outlook for a general election
September 25, 2017Author: Tobias Harris
Categories: Japan Political Pulse
Given Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s current status — recovering approval ratings, high marks for his handling of a serious foreign policy crisis, with an established opposition party in seemingly terminal decline, and a new opposition party scrambling to prepare for an election — the political logic of a snap election is indisputable. This analysis takes an in-depth look at public opinion polls on Abe and what they reveal about the coming election.
Tags: Abe, Asahi Shimbun, Cabinet, election, Japan, japan political pulse, jiji press, jpp, Kake Gakuen, kyodo news, LDP, Liberal Democratic Party, Mainichi Shimbun, moritomo gakuen, NHK, Nikkei, North Korea, Nuclear, poll, polling, public opinion, Shinzo Abe, snap election, tobias harris, yomiuru shimbun

Abe’s support recovers, but public still has mixed feelings about the government and its policies
April 27, 2017Author: Tobias Harris
Categories: Japan Political Pulse, Sasakawa USA Blog
The Abe administration’s approval ratings have rebounded in the latest round of polling, regaining much of the ground lost from the Moritomo Gakuen scandal. While doubts about the scandal remain, the public has largely moved on.
Tags: Japan, japan political pulse, moritomo gakuen, North Korea, public opinion, Shinzo Abe

JPP Archive: Japanese Fiscal Year 2016
April 1, 2017Categories: Japan Political Pulse
The Japan Political Pulse aggregates major opinion polls conducted by Japanese media outlets in order to provide a more accurate picture of the Abe government’s public approval rating. This specific graph is an archive of Japan Political Pulse’s data for Japanese Fiscal Year 2016 (April 2016 through March 2017).
Tags: fiscal year 2016, fy2016, Japan, japan political pulse, jfy2016, jpp, jpp archive, opinion, opinion poll, poll, poll aggregator, public opinion, Shinzo Abe

JPP: Polls show Japanese public satisfied with Abe-Trump summit
February 13, 2017Author: Tobias Harris
Categories: Japan Political Pulse
Polls conducted by NHK and Kyodo News in the aftermath of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “golf summit” with U.S. President Donald Trump showed that the Japanese public approved of the outcome of the summit. Although the summit left important questions about the direction of economic cooperation unanswered, to the extent that the summit eased the public’s concerns about the direction of the U.S.-Japan relationship under the new U.S. administration, it was an unqualified success.
Tags: Abe, abe-trump, approval, approval rating, donald trump, golf summit, Japan, japan political pulse, jpp, kyodo, NHK, poll, public opinion, Shinzo Abe, summit, us-japan relations