A Strong Second Month for Takaichi Sanae in the Polls

Honeymoon Numbers Still in Effect

The November 2025 results are in for all the public opinion surveys carried out monthly by Japan’s major media organizations to gauge support for the present government. Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae saw strong support for her administration across the board, with the most improvement coming in the Kyōdō News survey, where her approval rating climbed by 5.5 percentage points to reach 69.9%. NHK and Jiji Press, both implementing their first surveys since she came to power on October 21, found support levels in the same range, at 66% and 64%, respectively.

All of the surveys placed disapproval ratings for the new administration at low levels, hovering around 20%. Aside from the Kyōdō poll, where this figure fell 6.7 points from October, there was little monthly change in the negative sentiment toward the Takaichi government in any of the polls.

Prime Minister Takaichi set a punishing diplomatic schedule for herself in October and November, with a summit in Tokyo with US President Donald Trump followed by the APEC summit meeting in South Korea and the G20 gathering in South Africa. This may have boosted her support numbers; as Jiji noted, her position as the first female prime minister in Japanese history heightened expectations of her administration, and her summitry flurry early on was largely seen in a positive light.

No Popularity Hit from the Taiwan Flap

Numerous administrations in recent years have seen their support ratings drop markedly in the second surveys carried out following their launch, after an initial honeymoon bounce. As the Yomiuri Shimbun noted in its coverage, though, with a 71% approval rating in October followed by 72% in November, Takaichi is bucking the trend, as did rare cases like Koizumi Jun’ichirō in 2001 and Abe Shinzō in 2012, when he took the prime minister’s reins for the second time. The Asahi Shimbun, meanwhile, gave Japan’s new leader high marks for maintaining a historically high starting level of support into her second month.

One potential dark cloud entered this promising sky on November 7, when Prime Minister Takaichi stated in a House of Representatives budget meeting that a “Taiwan contingency”—namely a Chinese military effort to claim the island—could represent a “crisis threatening Japan’s national survival,” thus requiring the exercise of collective self-defense. Beijing’s furious response has dealt a blow to the Japanese economy in the form of reduced tourist numbers to Japan from the mainland.

Despite this, the views of Japanese survey respondents have been largely positive on Takaichi’s performance here as well. In the Nikkei survey, fully 55% of respondents said that her statement had been appropriate, while 50% of respondents to the Mainichi Shimbun survey’s question on the topic did not think there was anything wrong with her comment.

A look at the Jiji poll’s trends in approval ratings for successive administrations over the last several years makes Takaichi’s strong support particularly clear. For a period of 28 months, starting during Kishida Fumio’s term and running through the length of Ishiba Shigeru’s time in office, the administration’s disapproval rating constantly outstripped its approval rating. That trend appears to have been soundly reversed with the arrival of Takaichi in the office.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae responds to opposition questions in the National Diet on November 26, 2025. © Jiji.)