Post-election positioning | Today in the Upper House Campaign

Ruling and opposition party leaders are preparing for post-election chaos while making their closing arguments, while critical attention to Sanseitō continues to grow

This is the latest update for paid subscribers on the state of the upper house campaign, which will continue through the vote on 20 July.

A pdf of my viewer’s guide to the upper house elections — available to paid subscribers here — can be purchased here.

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Paid subscribers will be able to join a Substack chat following the results in real time here. I will also be posting updates on Bluesky.

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The campaign trail

Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru campaigns in Shiga prefecture on Friday, 18 July. Source: @shigeruishiba on X

Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru was in Nagasaki on Thursday, 17 July and Shiga and Kanagawa prefectures on Friday, 18 July. Ishiba was supposed to visit Saga on Thursday but the stop was canceled, making it the first day of the campaign that the prime minister campaigned in only one place. [Other stories have surfaced about local LDP chapters encountering resistance to the prime minister’s presence.] The Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) Koizumi Shinjirō was in northern single-member districts on Thursday, campaigning in Yamagata, Fukushima, and Tochigi, and visited multi-member districts Friday, stopping in Saitama and Aichi. Kobayashi Takayuki was in single-member districts along the Sea of Japan side of the country, campaigning in Nagano, Niigata, and Toyama on Thursday and Yamaguchi and Fukui on Friday.

Komeitō leader Saitō Tetsuo and the LDP’s Koizumi Shinjirō campaign for Komeitō’s Yasue Nobuo (center) in Aichi prefecture on Friday. Source: @saitotetsuo on X

Komeitō leader Saitō Tetsuo campaigned with Koizumi in Aichi on 18 July and was in Fukuoka on 17 July.

Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) leader Noda Yoshihiko was in Tokushima, Okayama, and Mie – all single-member constituencies – on Thursday, and then swung through four constituencies on Friday, including Hiroshima, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, and Saga. CDP Secretary-General Ogawa Junya was in Kagoshima, Kumamoto, and Hiroshima on Thursday and Tokyo on Friday.

DPFP leader Tamaki Yūichirō campaigns for DPFP candidate Okumura Yoshihiro outside Tokyo Station on 17 July. Source: @tamakiyuichiro on X

On Thursday, 17 July, Democratic Party for the People (DPFP) leader Tamaki Yūichirō was in Kanagawa, Tokyo, and Yamanashi, while on Friday he started in Tokyo before campaigning in Toyama, Osaka, and Aichi.

Ishin no Kai co-leaders Yoshimura Hirofumi and Maehara Seiji stayed in Kansai, with Maehara campaigning in Shiga on Thursday and Kyoto on Friday and Yoshimura in Hyogo and Osaka on Thursday and Hyogo again on Friday.

Sanseitō’s Kamiya Sōhei swung through Kansai on Thursday, stopping in Shiga, Kyoto, Osaka, and Hyogo before ending in Tokushima. He was in central Japan on Friday, campaigning in Gifu, Mie, Aichi, Shizuoka, and Yamanashi.

JCP leader Tamura Tomoko was in Tokyo on Thursday and Osaka and Kyoto on Friday.