Asahi Poll Also Looks Unpromising for Opposition

This is an Asahi poll, but it’s nevertheless remarkable how the Abe administration can get such low grades on policy issues and the responders are still breaking 37% and 3% for the LDP and Komeito and only 30%, 11%, 6%, 5%, 2%, 2% and 1% for NA/don’t know, DPJ, Innovation Party, Communist Party, others, People's Life Party and Social Democrats respectively when it comes to voter intent for the regional proportional district votes. If we assume that a) the regional proportional seats are distributed to the parties in proportion to the votes cast, b) the actual votes come out in the same proportions as expressed intent, and c) all the NA/don’t knows also vote but break two to one for the opposition parties, the proportional seats will be split evenly 90:90 between the ruling coalition. That means that the opposition would have to take 86 of the 295 single-seat districts to deny the ruling coalition a 300-seat majority or 90 to take 30 seats away from the ruling coalition, pushing them below the low bar as initially whispered by LDP members. The 90:90 split looks possible, but barring some dramatic unforeseen event, such as a serious scandal swallowing up the prime minister, the 86/90 single-seat threshold looks significantly less plausible.

I’ll try not to blog about the election for the time being unless there are serious changes in my outlook/it looks like I’ll be terribly wrong.