There are something funny things going on in terms of these mega polls supporting projections of a massive LDP victory on December 14*
1) The Yomiuri and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun both are basing their reporting on a survey with 120,000 voters called, 80,000 responses, and a 64% response rate.
Oddly identical numbers.
Hmmm...
2) The survey the Yomiuri used found 42% of respondents Support the Abe Cabinet and 39% Do Not Support the Cabinet. In the Yomiuri survey done three weeks ago, 55% of voters contact said they Support the Cabinet, and 36% said they Do Not Support.
Should we be talking about momentum (勢い) in our headlines so much, ladies and gentlemen of the press?
Hmmmm...
3) The Kyodo News is saying it polled 150,000 households and received 120,000 responses, a response rate of 80% (polling organizations normally report a 55%~65% rate of response).
Double hmmmm...
I do not doubt that if all these different polls are showing a distribution of voting patterns ending up at the 300+ seat figure for the Liberal Democratic Party that there is a significant likelihood of the party winning that many seat.
I would like to wait until next week, when The Asahi Shimbun at least promises to have snapshots of every one of the 295 district races by December 11.
Later - A few links related to the above:
Projections of an LDP landslide
- http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0001764869
- http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201412040020
- http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20141204p2g00m0dm022000c.html
- http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Policy-Politics/Abe-s-party-could-expand-its-hold-on-parliament
- http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/12/04/national/politics-diplomacy/ldp-course-win-300-seats-election-kyodo-poll/
Lack of enthusiasm for election (J)
- http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/election/shugiin/2014/news2/20141203-OYT1T50110.html
Support for the Cabinet (J)
- http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/election/poll/20141126-OYT8T50025.html
A guide to Japan’s general election
2 months ago
2 comments:
Which surveys are you talking about (links please, if you have time!)?
I must have missed the Yomiuri one.
Odd to waste their money on a sample size that large. Do you recall what kind of sample it was?
I recall that the Yomiuri had a headline about support falling about a week ago (can dig it out, if you like), but at that point the support rate in their was higher than Jiji's.
-GS
I did my now prelim projections of the election results.
Note: all the news outlets projections has a massive majority for LDP with LDP itself over 300 seats which means LDP-KP will be at 330-340. I very much doubt this. I might go down with the ship as a poll un-skewer but I think the polls fundamentally overestimate LDP.
My assumptions are
1) Turnout will be low which helps KP, JCP and HRP
2) DPJ and JIP will be mostly effective at transferring votes to each other in place where they have seat adjustments, especially when DPJ is transferring support to JIP.
3) YP support will be splintered between DPJ/JIP, LDP, and non-voters with a bias toward DPJ/JIP. This is the critical of the assumptions and is the main reason my projections are way off the mainstream media projections which implicitly infer that YP support will mainly go to LDP.
That said the PR vote I project to be
LDP 30%
KP 15%
DPJ 25.5%
JIP 12.5%
PFG 2.5%
PLP 2%
SDP 2%
HRP 0.5%
which would translate into a PR seat count for LDP-KP of around 86-90 out of 180.
As for FPTP seats,
1) Of the 149 seats that will be DPJ vs LDP/KP I expect that DPJ will win 38 with another 31 as possible wins for DPJ
2) Of the 52 seats that will be JIP vs LDP/KP I expect that JIP will win 10 with another 11 as possible wins for JIP
3) Of the 9 seats that will be PLP vs LDP/KP I expect that PLP will win 1 with another 1 as possible win for PLP
4) Of the 9 seats that will be SDP vs LDP/KP I expect that SDP will win 1 with no chance of any more wins.
5) Of the 34 seats where two of set {DPJ, JIP, PLP, and SDP} will be running against LDP/JP, DPJ I expect DPJ to win 3 of them with another 2 wins as possibilities. I expect JUP to win 4 of them with another 1 as a possibility.
6) PFG will win 2 seats
7) 7 pro-LDP (from a hawk-dove policy point of view) independent will win (2 of them against {DPJ, JIP, PLP, and SDP} with LDP support, 5 of them against LDP 1-on-1)
Cool 2 pro-DPJ independents with the support of {DPJ, JIP, PLP, and SDP} will win.
This leaves LDP-KP with between 186-228 FPTP seats. So LDP-KP will get between 272-318 seats overall.
One thing I am not factoring in is possible anti-LDP tactical voting by JCP PR voters. If that is significant it makes it much more likely that LDP-KP will get the bottom of the 272-318 mark. Even without it I am inclined to feel that LDP-KP will toward the lower range my projection.
If I had to make a guess right now I would said something like 280-285 for LDP-KP. Of course if I am wrong about where YP vote will go then the LDP-KP seat share will be massive and will be in the 330-340 range.
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