Takaichi's solid poll support points to LDP winning big majority

Sakura Murakami, Bloomberg News on Feb 1, 2026

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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s public support remains solid while a new opposition alliance is struggling to resonate with voters, opinion polls over the weekend showed, positioning the ruling party for a comfortable majority in the upcoming lower house election.

A victory for Takaichi would consolidate the power of the Liberal Democratic Party and make passing bills through the more powerful chamber far easier than during the initial months of her premiership, when her ruling coalition held a razor-thin majority of 233 seats in the 465-seat lower house.

A survey by the Asahi newspaper even pointed to the possibility of a two-thirds majority win for the ruling coalition. That outcome would essentially enable Takaichi to overrule opposition in the second chamber, which the ruling coalition doesn’t control.

The latest polls follow several surveys last week suggesting that Takaichi’s bet to capitalize on high support ratings may prove successful based on respondents who have indicated their intentions. Still, uncertainty remains with as many as a third of voters undecided on who they will cast their ballots for.

The Asahi poll estimated that the ruling LDP and its junior partner, the Japan Innovation Party, has a chance of winning more than 300 seats, with the LDP on track to secure a standalone majority. The coalition would need 310 seats to secure a super-majority.

The same poll showed that the newly formed Centrist Reform Alliance is struggling to capture the public’s imagination, and could possibly lose half of its current 167 seats. The alliance was borne out of a merger between the Constitutional Democratic Party, the largest opposition force in the lower house before it was dissolved, and the LDP’s former coalition partner Komeito.

A JNN poll showed that just 10% of respondents were intending to vote for the CRA in the proportional representation ballot, compared with 32% favoring the LDP. Some 24% had not decided how they would vote. The polls showed that Takaichi’s support rating remains elevated at 69.9%, even after falling 8.2 points from a previous survey.

Takaichi has made the upcoming election a way to seek approval from the public for the LDP’s new partnership with the JIP, as well as a mandate on her leadership and her growth-focused policies.

She is seeking to ramp up investment and spending to boost the economy, temporarily cut the sales tax on food to relieve cost-of-living pressure and take a more robust stance on defense and foreigners.