Ishiba's policy liabilities loom large in new polls

The government's support is mostly stable, but the public is dissatisfied with what it's doing on key issues

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Polling data

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Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru meets with the Iris Princesses from Itako City, Ibaraki on 16 May. Source: Prime Minister’s Office of Japan

A new wave of opinion polling – new polls from Asahi, Yomiuri, Kyodo, and Mainichi – suggests that the trends apparent in the first wave of polling after Golden Week may be more deeply rooted.

Hope for Ishiba?

While the new polling reversed the modest recovery in net approval (unadjusted for house effects) following Golden Week – dropping more than ten points – the effect was less pronounced when correcting for biases, dropping only 1.5 percentage points to -25. The Ishiba government’s support still looks fairly stable, if significantly underwater.