Elections

CRA Veterans, Bigwigs Staring at Election Defeat

Yomiuri Shimbun file photo
Yoshihiko Noda, co-leader of the Centrist Reform Alliance, appeals for support in Ota, Gunma Prefecture on Saturday.

The Yomiuri Shimbun

15:59 JST, February 6, 2026

A growing number of Centrist Reform Alliance candidates, including several high-ranking and experienced members, are facing an increasingly uphill battle to win single-seat constituencies in Sunday’s House of Representatives election.

A Yomiuri Shimbun survey revealed that the number of CRA candidates looking likely to be defeated has increased from 86 during the early days of the campaign to 104 in the final stage.

In Miyagi Constituency No. 4, Jun Azumi, one of the CRA’s secretaries general, was initially running neck-and-neck with the Liberal Democratic Party candidate, Chisato Morishita. However, Morishita has since jumped ahead to take the lead over Azumi, who has been elected 10 times to the lower house. It appears that Azumi’s failure to win over voters not affiliated with any particular party has dented his chances of victory. Although the proportion of voters who support Azumi has remained steady since the campaign’s early stage, support for Morishita has surged from 15% to about 30%.

The CRA’s Akira Nagatsuma, a former health, labor and welfare minister, had a somewhat comfortable lead in Tokyo Constituency No. 27, but this race has become tight during the campaign. Even former Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, who has chalked up 12 consecutive wins since first being elected to the lower house in 1990, has found himself in an increasingly intense battle for Mie Constituency No. 3 with the LDP’s Masataka Ishihara. Both Nagatsuma and Okada have fallen behind their LDP rivals when it comes to expanding support among independent and young voters.

By contrast, some CRA candidates in the Tokyo metropolitan area have gained ground. CRA candidates in Tokyo Constituency No. 17 and Kanagawa Constituency No. 5 have closed the gap on LDP rivals and these races are set to go down to the wire. Komeito supporters have apparently stepped up their activities to get voters behind these candidates.

“I’m starting to feel that we’re capable of turning things around,” CRA coleader Yoshihiko Noda said to reporters in Yokohama on Thursday. Noda indicated that he would focus his efforts on the metropolitan area in the campaign’s closing days.