Japan snap election: PM Takaichi counts on her popularity to win Sunday’s poll

Japan's PM Sanae Takaichi aims for victory in the upcoming snap election, leveraging her popularity and coalition support amid rising tensions

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is leveraging her popularity to help her party win Sunday's (February 8, 2026) snap election as she pushes her right-wing agenda to boost her country's economy and military capabilities in the face of growing tensions with China and an unpredictable Washington.

The ultraconservative Ms. Takaichi, who took office as Japan’s first female leader in October, has since enjoyed high ratings and support as her style and “work, work, work” mantra resonates with younger fans.

Latest polls indicate a landslide win in the lower house for Ms. Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party. The opposition, despite the formation of a new centrist alliance and the rising far-right, remains too splintered to be a real challenger.

Ms. Takaichi's relatively safe bet is that her LDP party would, together with its new partner, the Japan Innovation Party, or JIP, secure a majority in the 465-seat lower house, the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber parliament.

Still, the latest surveys by major Japanese newspapers show there is a possibility Ms. Takaichi's party could win a simple majority on its own, while her coalition could win as many as 300 seats — a big jump from a thin majority it held since a 2024 election loss.

The coalition lacks a majority in the other chamber, the upper house, which leaves it dependent on cooperation from the opposition to pass legislation, a risk to stability.