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The ruling Liberal Democratic Party benefited from the opposition bloc failing to field unified candidates in single-seat districts in the Upper House election on July 10, attracting the bulk of unaffiliated voters, according to Asahi Shimbun exit polls.

Only four candidates from the opposition camp won seats of the 32 single-seat districts up for grabs. The LDP captured the rest.

The dismal showing is mainly because the opposition camp could only field unified challengers in 11 electoral districts in the latest election.

Opposition parties had unified candidates running in all the electoral districts against their LDP rivals in the 2016 and 2019 Upper House elections.

Their strategy paid off to a certain degree, gaining them 11 seats in 2016 and 10 seats in 2019.

They could not join forces this time, however, following their disarray after the opposition forces could not expand their strength in the Lower House election in October despite taking the same approach.

One good example of the LDP profiting from the fight among opposition parties is the Akita prefectural district, according to the exit polls.

In 2019, the share of independent voters had been 20 percent of the total in the district.

Of this, 23 percent of such voters had chosen the LDP candidate, while 71 percent of the votes had gone to the rival that the opposition camp endorsed.

The result was the opposition challenger edged out the LDP candidate.

In the latest election, however, the LDP candidate received 25 percent of the ballots cast by unaffiliated voters, ensuring their victory, according to the exit poll.

In the district, 17 percent of overall voters were unaffiliated.

Candidates backed by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDP), the Democratic Party for the People (DPP) and the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) separately garnered 16 percent, 44 percent and 6 percent, respectively, to total 66 percent of unaffiliated voters. 

In the Shiga prefectural district, unaffiliated voters had represented 18 percent of overall voters in the 2019 election.

The LDP gained 27 percent of their votes, while 65 percent had gone to a candidate backed by the opposition bloc. The result brought victory to the opposition challenger.

In the latest election, however, the LDP won 31 percent of unaffiliated voters, which accounted for 15 percent of all voters, according to the exit poll. Forty percent went to a candidate endorsed by both the CDP and DPP and 8 percent to the JCP. The LDP candidate won the election there.

The exit polls were conducted at 3,690 voting stations in 45 electoral districts nationwide, with interviews conducted with those who voted.

The Asahi Shimbun received valid responses from 167,332 voters.

Voter turnout for the latest Upper House election was 52.05 percent, up 3.25 percentage points from that seen at the 2019 Upper House election, which was the second lowest for Upper House elections in the postwar years, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

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