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Despite the Diet session’s extension, parliamentary business was on hold for Marine Day on Monday, 20 July, but three new polls conducted over the weekend suggest that Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s support is falling sharply.
Japan was off on Monday, 20 July for Marine Day, so even with the legislative session extended to 25 July parliamentary deliberations were on hold until Tuesday.
However, the day was not without news, specifically the results of three new polls – from the Mainichi Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun, and Asahi TV – that were among the worst polls Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae has had since taking office last October.
In Mainichi, her net approval swung from +16 last month to -4 this month, the first poll in which her disapproval was higher than her approval. In Asahi, her approval fell from +33 to +18. In Asahi TV, her support swung from +37 to +14. In my ten-day weighted moving average, the effect of these polls was to lower the government’s weighted average approval to 49.1% and its weighted average disapproval to 35.4%; adjusting for pollster bias raises the government’s weighted average approval to 52%, mainly because Mainichi is an outlier, but its adjusting for bias does not affect its disapproval. There remains a question of whether Mainichi’s efforts to correct for falling response rates makes it more or less reliable; perhaps all we can say is that the newspaper appears to be reaching a different sample than the pollsters relying on traditional random digit dialing – and the latter polls are moving in Mainichi’s direction. The government’s net approval is still positive, but it is worth stressing how significant a shift this is. This is the first time since Takaichi took office that the net approval in my weighted average has fallen below +20; until last week, it had never been below +30.
It seems that the government’s revision of the Imperial Household law may be the proximate trigger. Asahi, for example, found that only 24% thought that enough had been done to gain the public’s understanding for the revision; 60% disagreed. In Mainichi, 45% disapproved of the bill, only 19% approved (and 35% did not know). Similarly, 40% opposed the provisions permitting the adoption of the sons of former cadet branches, 25% approved, and 34% did not know, while 41% opposed imperial status for the sons of these men adopted into the imperial household, 26% approved, and 33% did not know. Meanwhile, 63% approve of the change permitting women to remain in the Imperial Household after marriage, and 72% support permitting women to inherit the throne. The significant numbers of respondents reporting “I don’t know,” however, suggests that this issue alone may not be driving the mood change.
Rather, the shift may be a combination of:
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