Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi of Japan made a big gamble on Sunday, holding a snap election only 110 days into her tenure. It paid off, with voters offering a resounding mandate for her economic policies and tough stance on immigration and China.
Ms. Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party secured an absolute majority in Japan’s 465-member House of Representatives, the lower house of Japan’s bicameral Parliament, according to results analyzed by NHK, the public broadcaster. As of 11.50 p.m. Sunday local time, the party had won at least 289 seats, up from 198, NHK said. The result clears the way for Ms. Takaichi to enact a conservative agenda that would bolster Japan’s military and strengthen its oversight of immigration and tourism.
Ms. Takaichi told NHK after her victory on Sunday that she had called the snap election because she felt “it would be wrong to simply drag things along without seeking a public mandate.” Regarding the legitimacy of her government, Ms. Takaichi noted she had “felt a sense of unease for a while.”
The outcome is a remarkable reversal of fortune for Ms. Takaichi’s party, which has governed Japan for much of the past seven decades but has suffered a series of bruising defeats in recent years, leaving it in the unusual position of being a minority in both houses of Parliament.
With her party now on a stronger footing, Ms. Takaichi will face few constraints as she pushes aggressive government spending programs and expansive national security laws. By joining forces with another group, the Japan Innovation Party, Ms. Takaichi will likely be able to harness a supermajority to fast-track her priorities.
“The L.D.P. will not stand in her way, and there will be virtually no opposition ability to slow down her agenda,” said Tobias Harris, the founder of the advisory firm Japan Foresight. “The biggest constraints she likely faces are external: financial markets, Washington and Beijing.”
Ms. Takaichi is working to persuade President Trump to maintain American military and economic commitments in Asia; the two are set to meet in Washington in March. She is also dealing with the fallout of China’s efforts to punish Japan over a comment she made in support of Taiwan, a self-governed democracy that Beijing claims is part of its territory.
Ms. Takaichi’s supporters hope that her decisive victory will help send a message that Tokyo will not back down in the face of Chinese threats.
“Japan should maintain a firm stance without making any compromises,” said Aoi Nakamura, a 22-year-old college student who supports the Liberal Democrats and voted in Tokyo on Sunday.
s and wintry winds to cast their ballots in an election seen as a referendum on Sanae Takaichi, the country’s first female prime minister. The city received a rare coating of snow overnight, and polls opened at 7 a.m. in temperatures of around 28 degrees Fahrenheit.
Japan usually holds its elections in months with milder weather. This time, Ms. Takaichi, a hard-line conservative, called a snap election last month hoping to capitalize on her popularity, particularly among young people, and to gain the seats she needs in Parliament to push through her economic and security agenda. Exit polls on Sunday night projected that her party was on course for a landslide victory.
The opposition has criticized the short notice period for the election, as well as its timing. Yoshihiko Noda, the co-leader of the opposition Centrist Reform Alliance party, expressed concern about the early closure of some polling stations because of the snow. As many people as possible should be able to vote, he told the Tokyo Shimbun, and “not being able to do so is a denial of democracy.”
Some candidates have also said that prolonged heavy snowfall in their areas has hampered their ability to campaign. Parts of Kyoto received nearly 14 inches of snow between 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. The city of Tottori, on the coast of the Sea of Japan, received nearly a foot between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m., according to Japan’s Meteorological Agency.
Some polling stations opened late or closed hours early, with officials citing the heightened risk for voters traveling in the dark. The government said that about 40 percent of all polling stations closed earlier than planned because of heavy snow.
Over the past two weeks, heavy snow in parts of Japan has buried some people in their homes, caused deadly accidents and stranded travelers. At least 46 people have been killed and 500 others injured, and officials have warned that the toll could rise.
The snow likely dampened voter turnout, which stood at 26.01 percent as of two hours before polls closed, according to Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. The figure represented a decline of nearly three percentage points from the 2024 lower house election.
Reporting from Tokyo
Former Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, of the Liberal Democratic Party, was re-elected in his home district of Tottori in Sunday’s election. Ishiba, who is part of a long tradition of L.D.P. prime ministers, stepped down in September after successive election defeats left his party in minority status.
Advertisement
Reporting from Tokyo
Takaichi’s party has lost support in recent years, including to the far-right Sanseito party. Hiroko Matsuyama, 45, said she voted for Sanseito on Sunday partly because she likes its anti-immigration policies and its plan to reduce or abolish Japan’s consumption tax in an effort to reduce high prices.
Reporting from Tokyo
National voter turnout stood at 26.01 percent as of two hours before polls closed, according to Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs. The figure represented a decline of nearly three percentage points from the 2024 lower house election, a dip likely attributable in part to snowfall across much of Japan on Sunday.
Reporting from Tokyo
The voting centers have closed in Japan. Exit polls are predicting a landslide for Takaichi and her party. One by NHK, the public broadcaster, said that Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party was projected to win more than 300 seats, well above the 233 needed for a majority in the House of Representatives.
Reporting from Tokyo
Mitsuru Go, 80, a retired fishmonger in Tokyo and a lifelong supporter of the Liberal Democratic Party, said he hopes the election result will strengthen the party’s parliamentary majority and allow Takaichi to govern more effectively. “Rather than doing things little by little or on a small scale, it will be good to do things as a bigger collective and do what she wants to do and get things done,” he said.
Advertisement
Reporting from Tokyo
Candidates braved snow and ice to deliver stump speeches. Volunteers, dressed in winter coats and gloves, handed out pamphlets on street corners. Trucks equipped with loudspeakers blasted political messages across normally serene neighborhoods.
Japan’s campaign machine went into high gear this week as candidates for Parliament made their final pitches to voters ahead of a snap election on Sunday. Under Japanese rules, candidates have only 12 days to campaign, one of the shortest election cycles in the world.
This election was especially time-crunched: Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi dissolved Parliament only 16 days ago, on Jan. 23, in a bid to win an absolute majority in the powerful House of Representatives. As a result, some candidates did not have enough time to print posters, making handmade signs instead. There were also shortages of campaign trucks in some areas.
Daisuke Tanaka, who runs a campaign car rental company in Osaka, said he had turned down a flood of requests.
“The election came so suddenly,” he said. “For Osaka, it is a crazy situation.”
Kosuke Kita, 38, is running for Parliament from Yamagata, a prefecture in northern Japan, as a member of the Democratic Party for the People, an opposition party. He spent a recent day shoveling snow that was blocking an election poster board.
“People don’t stop long enough to listen to me or shake hands with me in town because it’s snowing,” he said. “I am trying to convey my political message from the bottom of my heart.”
Kiuko Notoya and Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.
Reporting from Tokyo
Voters are casting two ballots for Japan’s 465-seat House of Representatives in today’s election — one for a specific candidate and one for a political party. This allows candidates who lose their individual district races to enter Parliament if their party performs well enough. Voters choose 289 members from single-seat constituencies and 176 through proportional representation.
Reporting from Tokyo
Aoi Nakamura, 22, said he voted for the Liberal Democratic Party on the first ballot and the Democratic Party for the People on the second. He that while he generally prefers the D.P.P.’s policies, the party did not field a candidate in his constituency. “I just wanted to give an extra boost to a conservative party,” he said of his L.D.P vote.
Reporting from Tokyo
Snow blanketed much of Tokyo on Sunday, and voters heading to the polls had to navigate slushy streets with temperatures hovering around freezing. Elections in Japan never really bring much energy to the streets of the capital, but this one has felt particularly subdued as the damp cold and winds kept most city-walkers huddled under umbrellas.
Advertisement
Reporting from Tokyo
China was not on the ballot in the Japanese snap election on Sunday, but it loomed large.
The Chinese government has sought to punish Japan recently over a remark Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made about Taiwan, the self-governed democracy that Beijing claims is part of its territory.
Ms. Takaichi, known for her hawkish views on China, said in November that Japan could intervene militarily if China were to attack Taiwan. Her comment broke with a previous policy of avoiding any explicit mention of Taiwan in the context of “survival-threatening situations.”
Beijing unleashed a wave of reprisals, restricting Japanese seafood imports, discouraging tourism to Japan and signaling it could limit the export of critical minerals to Japan.
Ms. Takaichi’s handling of the matter has been an issue on the campaign trail. Her stance has helped win over some voters, including younger generations who have shown a willingness to question the nation’s longstanding pacifism.
Aoi Nakamura, a 22-year-old college student, said he supported Ms. Takaichi’s tough approach to China.
“Japan should maintain a firm stance without making any compromises,” he said on Sunday outside a community center in Tokyo, where he was voting.
Ms. Takaichi’s critics say that she has unnecessarily exposed Japan to Chinese economic coercion and that the dispute could threaten Japan’s access to rare earth minerals from China.
Ms. Takaichi’s allies hope that a decisive victory on Sunday could show Beijing that she has the backing of the Japanese public, and that Tokyo will not back down in the face of Chinese threats.
Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.
Reporting from Tokyo
In her first 110 days as prime minister, Sanae Takaichi has already begun to reshape Japan’s economy.
She has put forward aggressive government spending programs that aim to spur growth, but have also stoked jitters regarding Japan’s staggering debt levels. A proponent of fiscal stimulus to break a longstanding deflationary cycle, Ms. Takaichi pushed through a record supplementary budget last year. She has accelerated plans to increase military spending and to advance large state-led investments in artificial intelligence and semiconductor manufacturing.
A snap election held on Sunday served in part as a referendum on whether the public approves of Ms. Takaichi’s economic agenda. Her party’s decisive victory sent a message that voters are willing to embrace what she has called her plans for a “proactive fiscal policy shift.”
A central question heading into the election was whether Ms. Takaichi’s expansionary policies have pushed the nation’s balance sheet too far. Last month, she signaled she would move forward with discussions regarding a suspension of certain consumption taxes — a move that Japan’s Finance Ministry estimates could cost more than $30 billion annually. The proposal sent benchmark government bond yields surging as investors questioned Ms. Takaichi’s ability to fund the strategy.
One major boost for the administration is the Japanese stock market, which has shrugged off the volatility seen in the bond market. Japan’s major benchmark indexes, including the Nikkei 225, have traded at record highs under the Takaichi administration, fueled by a weakened yen and robust corporate earnings.
In recent years, the protracted cycle of deflationary stagnation that plagued the Japanese economy has begun to turn around, yet households have struggled to pay for the rising costs of some staples like energy and fresh food.
In a positive turn for Ms. Takaichi, the inflation that eroded the popularity of several of her predecessors is finally showing signs of moderating. Economists expect consumer prices for February to dip potentially to about 1 percent year-on-year for the first time in nearly four years. This easing is expected to allow wage growth to finally outpace price increases, bolstering Japanese household finances this year.
“Japan’s perennial deflation may finally be ebbing as wages grow in tandem with a healthy dose of inflation,” Bruce Kirk, Goldman Sachs Research’s chief Japan equity strategist, wrote in a recent note. “We have a virtuous cycle in place.”
Despite the domestic optimism, a significant shadow looms: the economic fallout from diplomatic tensions with Beijing. Following a comment from Ms. Takaichi last year regarding Japan’s stance on the defense of Taiwan, China halted Japanese seafood imports, restricted group tourism, and signaled export curbs on critical minerals vital to Japanese manufacturing.
Relations between Tokyo and Beijing have yet to show signs of warming. Some economists warn that the “double-hit” of a tourism drought and rare-earth export restrictions could potentially wipe out up to a year’s worth of projected growth for the Japanese economy.
Advertisement
For weeks, Hikaru Fujita, a candidate in Japan’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, wrestled with a secret. She was pregnant with her first child — a joyous milestone for her and her husband.
But Ms. Fujita, 35, a Harvard-educated former diplomat, worried that publicizing her pregnancy could hurt her campaign. In late January, she set aside her fears, announcing on social media that she had been “blessed with new life.”
“I wanted to show that even pregnant women could run,” Ms. Fujita, from Nagano Prefecture, said in an interview. “I wanted to send a message to the younger generation.”
On social media, many people celebrated Ms. Fujita’s news, while others suggested that she should pursue a career as a housewife instead, and that a maternity leave would be a waste of taxpayers’ money.
With her revelation, Ms. Fujita, who is running for a seat in the powerful House of Representatives as a candidate for the governing Liberal Democratic Party, is testing Japan’s patriarchal system. She is one of a record number of women running for parliamentary seats on Sunday; 313 out of 1,285 candidates, or almost a quarter.
Despite the election last fall of Sanae Takaichi as prime minister — the first woman to serve in that role — women remain significantly underrepresented in Japanese politics. They occupy only about 16 percent of seats in the House of Representatives.
Expectant mothers rarely enter national politics; only a handful have run in local elections over the years. Many point to rampant workplace discrimination against young mothers. There is even a Japanese word for it: matahara, or maternity harassment.
Ms. Takaichi, a hard-line conservative from the same party, has avoided speaking out in public on gender issues. But she traveled to Nagano this week to campaign for Ms. Fujita. She is hoping the Liberal Democrats can pick up enough seats in the election to gain a majority and push through her agenda.
“There is no one more incredible than her,” Ms. Takaichi said in Nagano. “Please give her strength.”
Ms. Fujita previously worked on issues like economic security and North Korea’s missile program for Japan’s foreign affairs ministry; she has also worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company. She said she was motivated to run after watching homes and fields in Nagano empty out as people left for cities. She also feels that Japan’s political system has become too fragmented and bureaucratic.
On the campaign trail, she has offered policies aimed at winning over women and families, including addressing gender pay gaps and expanding child care. She has also made a point of taking time to rest. Her campaign slogan is “Trying her best without overworking herself.”
She has frequently deployed her husband, Tomohiro Fujita, as her surrogate; he has taken time off from his job as a physics professor to help lead the campaign. He often appears alongside her, wearing a white beanie emblazoned with a Japanese word for husband.
Ms. Fujita said the negative comments about her candidacy were “discouraging, disappointing.” But she said she was trying to tune them out.
“It affects me a little bit,” she said in the interview. “But at the end of the day, all these comments are invisible.”
Still, she has occasionally encountered traditional attitudes on the campaign trail. Men often do not make eye contact with her during meetings, she said, instead looking at her husband.
“I didn’t feel comfortable about it, but I also feel that they don’t do it on purpose — they do it unconsciously,” Ms. Fujita said.
Her husband said that men appeared to be “nervous sitting in front of a powerful woman — they are uneasy.”
“They feel more comfortable talking to me,” he said.
Ms. Fujita said she hopes her campaign can help challenge conceptions about who can wield power in Japanese society.
“If I fail, I worry there will be fewer opportunities for younger women,” she said. “My job is to run a strong campaign but also to stay healthy and safe.”
