2025 POLLS: DPFP's Bullish Strategy in Tokyo Hit Snags

   Tokyo, July 7 (Jiji Press)--Dark clouds are now hanging over the Democratic Party for the People's bullish strategy for the Tokyo constituency in the upcoming House of Councillors election.
   In late April, when the center-right opposition party announced it would field two rookies--former NHK newscaster Mayu Ushida and former corporate worker Yoshihiro Okumura--in the largest Upper House constituency with seven seats up for grabs in total in the July 20 election.
   "They both can win seats," a party executive said at the time in view of continued tailwinds for the DPFP, which quadrupled its seats to 28 in last autumn's election for the House of Representatives, the all-important lower chamber, and was enjoying higher approval ratings than the leading opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan in media polls.
   But the DPFP saw public support quickly go south in the wake of media reports that the party planned to pick Shiori Yamao, a sex scandal-hit former Lower House lawmaker, as a proportional representative candidate in the upcoming election. The plan was aborted later.
   DPFP chief Yuichiro Tamaki's comment likening government reserve rice set for release to consumers amid retail rice price spikes to "animal feed" also fueled backlash against the party.

(2025/07/07-20:20)

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