IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eti/dpaper/26044.html

Voter Switching and Policy Preferences: Evidence from Japan's 2025-2026 elections

Author

Listed:
  • Eiji YAMAMURA
  • Yasuyuki TODO

Abstract

This study examines vote switching between Japan’s July 2025 House of Councillors and February 2026 House of Representatives elections. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered a major defeat in 2025, then achieved a landslide victory in 2026 under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, who adopted a moderate but firmly immigration-restrictive platform. Based on a survey that collected 19,945 responses, we analyzed a sub-sample of 14,431 valid respondents using multinomial logit and Heckman selection probit models to examine party choice and vote switching. Major findings are as follows: (1) opposition to Trump-style tariffs is universal across parties, while support for immigration restriction divides voters sharply. (2) voters who switched to the LDP distrusted unverified foreigners but accepted workplace-integrated ones. (3) risk-averse voters who had supported right-wing opposition parties were especially likely to switch to the LDP. However, it should be noted that the estimation results may be biased, as the study does not account for views on topics such as the Constitution or nuclear power.

Suggested Citation

  • Eiji YAMAMURA & Yasuyuki TODO, 2026. "Voter Switching and Policy Preferences: Evidence from Japan's 2025-2026 elections," Discussion papers 26044, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    • Handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:26044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/dp/26e044.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc & Marc Sangnier, 2016. "Trust and the Welfare State: the Twin Peaks Curve," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 861-883, June.
    2. Eiji Yamamura, 2012. "Perceived Consequences of Immigration in Japan Depend upon Frequency of Contact with Foreigners," The Japanese Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 37-48.
    3. Catalinac, Amy, 2018. "Positioning under Alternative Electoral Systems: Evidence from Japanese Candidate Election Manifestos," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(1), pages 31-48, February.
    4. Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc & Marc Sangnier, 2016. "Trust and the Welfare State: the Twin Peaks Curve," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(593), pages 861-883, June.
    5. Oh, Hyungna & Hong, Jong Ho, 2012. "Citizens’ trust in government and their willingness-to-pay," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 115(3), pages 345-347.
    6. James Flamino & Alessandro Galeazzi & Stuart Feldman & Michael W. Macy & Brendan Cross & Zhenkun Zhou & Matteo Serafino & Alexandre Bovet & Hernán A. Makse & Boleslaw K. Szymanski, 2023. "Political polarization of news media and influencers on Twitter in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(6), pages 904-916, June.
    7. Jacob R. Brown & Ryan D. Enos, 2021. "The measurement of partisan sorting for 180 million voters," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(8), pages 998-1008, August.
    8. Ryosuke Okazawa & Katsuya Takii, 2019. "Intergenerational Conflict Over Consumption Tax Hike: Evidence from Japan," OSIPP Discussion Paper 19E009, Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
    9. Inglehart, Ronald F. & Norris, Pippa, 2016. "Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and Cultural Backlash," Working Paper Series 16-026, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    10. Levi Boxell & Matthew Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2024. "Cross-Country Trends in Affective Polarization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(2), pages 557-565, March.
    11. Horiuchi, Yusaku & Smith, Daniel M. & Yamamoto, Teppei, 2018. "Measuring Voters’ Multidimensional Policy Preferences with Conjoint Analysis: Application to Japan’s 2014 Election," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(2), pages 190-209, April.
    12. Eiji Yamamura & Haruo Kondoh, 2013. "Government Transparency And Expenditure In The Rent-Seeking Industry: The Case Of Japan For 1998–2004," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(3), pages 635-647, July.
    13. André, Christophe & Gal, Peter & Schief, Matthias, 2026. "Employment and productivity in an ageing society: Japan in international perspective," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 33(C).
    14. Eiichi Tomiura & Banri Ito & Hiroshi Mukunoki & Ryuhei Wakasugi, 2016. "Individual Characteristics, Behavioral Biases, and Trade Policy Preferences: Evidence from a Survey in Japan," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 1081-1095, November.
    15. Yotam Margalit, 2019. "Economic Insecurity and the Causes of Populism, Reconsidered," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 152-170, Fall.
    16. Eiji Yamamura, 2014. "Trust in government and its effect on preferences for income redistribution and perceived tax burden," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 71-100, February.
    17. Eiji Yamamura, 2025. "Grandchildren and Views about Consumption Tax," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 12(1), pages 97-127, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eiji Yamamura & Fumio Ohtake, 2026. "Preference for redistribution and institutional trust: Comparison before and after COVID-19," Papers 2603.06106, arXiv.org.
    2. Eiji Yamamura & Fumio Ohtake, 2026. "The Widening Gap in Tax Attitudes: Role of Government Trust in the post COVID-19 period," Papers 2603.06098, arXiv.org.
    3. Keefer, Philip & Scartascini, Carlos & Vlaicu, Razvan, 2022. "Demand-side determinants of public spending allocations: Voter trust, risk and time preferences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    4. Yamamura, Eiji, 2014. "Time preference and perceptions about government spending and tax: Smokers’ dependence on government support," MPRA Paper 55659, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Andrea Fazio, 2024. "Protests, long-term preferences, and populism: Evidence from 1968 in Europe," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 920-944.
    6. Hauk, Esther & Oviedo, Mónica & Ramos, Xavier, 2022. "Perception of corruption and public support for redistribution in Latin America," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    7. Eiji Yamamura, 2025. "Impact of income position information on perceived tax burden and preference for redistribution: An online survey," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(2), pages 609-641, May.
    8. Collewet, Marion & Fairley, Kim & Kessels, Roselinde & Knoef, Marike & van Vliet, Olaf, 2024. "The design of welfare: unraveling taxpayers' preferences," OSF Preprints 4am7e, Center for Open Science.
    9. Matevž (Matt) Rašković & Katalin Takacs Haynes & Anastas Vangeli, 2024. "The emergence of populism as an institution and its recursive mechanisms: A socio-cognitive theory perspective," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 19-40, March.
    10. Gabriel Felbermayr & Toshihiro Okubo, 2022. "Individual preferences on trade liberalization: evidence from a Japanese household survey," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 158(1), pages 305-330, February.
    11. Gordon B. Dahl & Runjing Lu & William Mullins, 2022. "Partisan Fertility and Presidential Elections," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 473-490, December.
    12. Backes, Annika & Mueller, Steffen, 2024. "Import shocks and voting behavior in Europe revisited," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    13. Phillip Keefer & Carlos Scartascini, 2022. "Organization, Citizenship, and the Social Contract," IDB Publications (Book Chapters), in: Phillip Keefer & Carlos Scartascini (ed.), Trust: The Key to Social Cohesion and Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, edition 1, chapter 8, pages 195-222, Inter-American Development Bank.
    14. Mauro, Luciano & Pigliaru, Francesco & Carmeci, Gaetano, "undated". "Government Size, Civic Capital and Economic Performance: An O-ring approach," FEEM Working Papers 352146, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    15. Samuel Berlinski & Matias Busso & Phillip Keefer & Carlos Scartascini, 2022. "A Primer on Trust: Measures and Determinants," IDB Publications (Book Chapters), in: Phillip Keefer & Carlos Scartascini (ed.), Trust: The Key to Social Cohesion and Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, edition 1, chapter 2, pages 27-50, Inter-American Development Bank.
    16. Johannes Matzat & Axel Dreher & Sarah Langlotz & Christopher Parsons, 2026. "From Moderates to Extremes: How Immigration Polarizes American Politics," CESifo Working Paper Series 12377, CESifo.
    17. Eugenio Levi & Fabrizio Patriarca, 2020. "An exploratory study of populism: the municipality-level predictors of electoral outcomes in Italy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 37(3), pages 833-875, October.
    18. Miguel Porrua & Benjamin Roseth, 2022. "The Link between Trust and Digital Transformation," IDB Publications (Book Chapters), in: Phillip Keefer & Carlos Scartascini (ed.), Trust: The Key to Social Cohesion and Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, edition 1, chapter 6, pages 143-168, Inter-American Development Bank.
    19. Denis Ivanov, 2023. "Economic Insecurity, Institutional Trust and Populist Voting Across Europe," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(3), pages 461-482, September.
    20. Sergio Perilla & Razvan Vlaicu & Phillip Keefer, 2022. "Trust, Citizenship, and the Making of Good Public Policy," IDB Publications (Book Chapters), in: Phillip Keefer & Carlos Scartascini (ed.), Trust: The Key to Social Cohesion and Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean, edition 1, chapter 4, pages 79-108, Inter-American Development Bank.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eti:dpaper:26044. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: TANIMOTO, Toko (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rietijp.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.