Boon or bane? Japan’s LDP boosts support among older voters

TOKYO — Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party is riding strong support into the upper house elections on July 10, thanks to its growing popularity among older voters who appear to like that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who has been in office for nine months now, has made wealth distribution part of his economic policies.

Perhaps for the same reason, however, the party is struggling to appeal to voters in their 20s and 30s, a key support base for the LDP under former prime ministers Yoshihide Suga and Shinzo Abe, Kishida’s immediate predecessors.

The Kishida cabinet was supported by 60% of voters in Nikkei’s latest poll from June 17-19, down 6 percentage points from May but above the 59% posted soon after the government was formed in October 2021. During the same period, the LDP’s approval rating has fluctuated between 40% and just above 50%.

The ruling party’s popularity has been on the rise among voters 40 and older since Abe launched his second cabinet in December 2012, according to an analysis of previous Nikkei polling data. Nikkei calculated the LDP’s average approval rating under each of the three cabinets by age group.

The LDP’s approval rating among those in their 50s and 60s has topped 45% under Kishida, up more than 6 points from the time Abe was in power, while the rating among voters 70 or older surged above 50% under the current cabinet.

As for voters in their 20s, the LDP’s average approval rating has not changed much from where it was during Suga’s year in office, while the party’s support among those in their 30s fell after Kishida assumed office.

A major impetus behind the growing support among older voters is a goal of wealth redistribution, which Kishida promised as a way to support the middle class when he took office, one expert said.

When asked which should be prioritized — wealth distribution or economic growth — 49% of those in their 60s picked wealth distribution and 39% growth. Among 18- to 39-year-olds, however, 59% said growth is more important, with 31% saying otherwise.

Kishida’s appeal among older voters is not limited to economic policy.

Koji Nakakita, a professor at Hitotsubashi University, said many of Kishida’s older supporters prefer that the prime minister be less aggressive than Suga and Abe when it comes to amending the constitution to acknowledge the Self-Defense Forces and other issues. But, Nakakita added, “Kishida’s policies might have left many reform-minded youths unsatisfied.”

Led by Abe, the LDP has won all three upper house elections since 2013, partly thanks to strong support among younger voters.

According to exit polls by Kyodo News, more than 40% of voters in their 20s went for the LDP in 2013, 2016 and 2019, 3 to 5 points higher than the overall average. In contrast, the ratio of people in their 50s and 60s who cast their ballots for the LDP remained below 40%.

The analysis of past polling data also reveals changes in Japan’s political landscape since the last upper house election.

One of these is a decline in the number of unaffiliated voters in Tokyo and other urban areas.

The average percentage of unaffiliated voters in Tokyo and its three surrounding prefectures — Saitama, Chiba and Kanagawa — has fallen from 35% in 2019 to 29% this year. In the Kansai region prefectures of Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo and Nara, the drop was 9 points.

The major beneficiaries of this trend have been the LDP and the small opposition Nippon Ishin, or Japan Innovation Party. Each has increased its support rate by about 5 points in the Tokyo metropolitan area, with Nippon Ishin gaining more than 9 points in the Kansai region.

The same trend, albeit on a smaller scale, can be seen in the Tokai region (Gifu, Shizuoka, Aichi and Mie prefectures), traditionally a stronghold for opposition parties (Japan’s LDP has been in power almost continuously since 1955).

This shift has largely bypassed the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition party whose approval rating has not increased in any of the three urban regions since 2019.

The LDP and its junior coalition partner Komeito scored major victories in lower house elections held soon after Kishida formed his cabinet. To repeat that performance, the parties are counting on adding support among older voters and attracting more independents.

But new hurdles have recently presented themselves in the forms of rising prices for daily necessities and cutbacks in pension benefits. This one-two punch could turn off older voters who have been drawn to Kishida’s plan to redistribute some of the country’s wealth.

Notoriously fickle urban voters are also not a lock.

The Constitutional Democratic Party and Nippon Ishin are stepping up their attacks on the ruling coalition for its inability to slow inflation. They are also calling for a consumption tax break.

Nearly 10 years have passed since the LDP returned to power after its most recent hiatus, of a little more than three years. Many pundits are watching closely how its newly constructed support base will affect voting, which many see as Kishida’s first “midterm election.”