Fine Results in February: Opinion Polls Continue to Paint Rosy Picture for Prime Minister Takaichi

A Strong Post-Election Performance

Following the slight dip in her numbers in the January 2026 opinion polls, Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae saw her approval ratings jump once again in most of the surveys carried out by key Japanese media organizations in February. These polls all took place after the February 8 House of Representatives election, where Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party took 316 seats out of the 465 in the lower house, cementing its rule—and its leader’s position.

From December 2025 to January this year, the premier’s support ratings dropped in most of the polls, including the Mainichi Shimbun survey, where she saw a 10-point drop month on month. In February, though, a rebound was evident, with her approval rating rising 4.2 percentage points in the Kyōdō News poll and 4 points according to Mainichi. Climbs were also seen in numbers published by NHK, Nikkei, Jiji Press, and Sankei Shimbun. There were slight falls, however, in her ratings in polls carried out by the Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun. It is worth noting, though, that the Yomiuri organization polled respondents once more in February 18–19, after Takaichi had finalized her new cabinet, finding 73% of them approving of her administration, a 6-point leap from the poll implemented soon after the election that brought her back into the all-time high range she enjoyed in December last year.

Her disapproval rating, meanwhile, remained more or less steady across the board, rising by a high of 3.3 points in the Jiji poll and dropping most in the Mainichi poll, where it fell by 4 points.

Concerns About an All-Powerful Ruling Party?

With the LDP now holding a supermajority in the lower house, with more than two thirds of the seats there, questions posed to survey respondents garnered responses pointing to public concerns about this concentration of political power in the hands of one party.

The Mainichi poll asked respondents whether they thought it was good that the LDP had succeeded to this extent in the election, finding 39% of them believing it was not ideal, compared to just 30% who saw it as a positive. The Nikkei survey, too, found fully 49% of respondents thinking that the LDP would ideally not have taken so many seats, compared to 44% viewing the situation as appropriate and just 4% who thought the party should have taken even more of the lower house. In the Asahi Shimbun poll, 62% of respondents indicated that the LDP now holds too many seats, with just 29% thinking the situation is just right and a mere 2% wishing the party had won still more. And the Sankei poll turned up 55.6% of respondents viewing the election results as positive, versus 31.5% in the negative camp.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo: Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae delivers a policy speech to the House of Representatives plenary session on February 20, 2026. © Jiji.)