Poll: Young Voters and Men More Satisfied with Japan’s Lower House Election Results

The Yomiuri Shimbun

14:21 JST, February 11, 2026

A Yomiuri Shimbun opinion survey conducted following Sunday’s House of Representative election highlighted that Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s Cabinet has been popular especially among younger people and men, indicating these groups welcomed the Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide victory.

The survey, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, showed that 55% of the respondents felt good about the latest election outcome overall. By age groups, 63% felt so among those ages 18-39, while 58% among those age 40-59. The gap of satisfaction was small among those ages 60 and over, with 48% saying good, while 38% saying not good. By gender, 61% of men were satisfied with the result, higher than 49% among women.

The Centrist Reform Alliance maintained its position as the largest opposition party after the election but saw a large number of former Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan members lose in single-seat constituencies. Eighty percent of the respondents expressed no expectation for the CRA, up 11 percentage points from the previous January survey conducted immediately after the lower house dissolution. The percentage of those who have expectations for the new party fell from 22% to 16%.

The survey asked the respondents, based on their party affiliation, to pick any of nine reasons given for the LDP’s victory and found that a lack of opposition party leaders’ appeal ranked third at 64% even among opposition supporters. The ranking matched that of the overall respondents. Expectations for Takaichi’s political stance ranked at the top of the reasons among opposition supporters with 73%. This reason came out on top among both supporters of ruling parties and independent voters as well.

This suggests that while Takaichi positioned trust in her leadership as a key issue, the opposition failed to present effective counterarguments, leading to a widespread perception among opposition supporters that they lost the leadership contest.

Shortcomings of opposition parties were also pointed out among independent voters, with 63% citing insufficiency of their campaign preparations, and 58% citing a lack of their leaders’ appeal.