Upper House Election: Japan Upper House Election Campaign Kicks Off; LDP, Komeito Aiming for 50 Seats to Keep Majority

The Yomiuri Shimbun

18:09 JST, July 3, 2025

Campaigning for the House of Councillors election began Thursday and will continue until the day before the polls open on July 20. Economic measures to counter prolonged high prices will be a key issue, with the ruling and opposition parties engaging in debate on the matter.

The most attention will be on whether the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and its coalition partner Komeito can secure 50 seats or more, thereby keeping their majority in the upper house.

The House of Councillors has 248 seats, and half of these are up for election every three years for a six-year term. This time, 125 seats will be up for grabs: 74 prefectural constituency seats, 50 for proportional representation section and one seat to fill a vacancy in a Tokyo electoral constituency.

A total of 522 people had registered as candidates — 350 for constituency seats and 172 for proportional representation. This compares to 545 candidates for the previous upper house election in 2022.

In last October’s House of Representatives election, the ruling parties fell short of a majority and became a minority ruling bloc.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is also president of the LDP, has set a “must-achieve target” of 50 seats or more. He hopes to maintain a majority, or 125 seats, in the upper house, including 75 seats which are not being contested in this election.

A majority of the seats up for grabs this time around would be 63.

The results will be closely watched in the 32 constituencies nationwide where only one seat is being contested, as those areas are expected to determine the overall winner. In the multiple-seat constituencies, the ruling and opposition parties have actively fielded candidates, making the election a crowded contest.

Ishiba delivered his first speech in Kobe on Thursday, explaining a policy to pay out flat sums of money to the public and calling for the continuation of the LDP and Komeito administration. “We’ll make sure that by the end of this year, [the payments of money] will go to people who are struggling to make ends meet,” the prime minister said.

In his first speech in the same city, Komeito leader Tetsuo Saito expressed his intention to make efforts “to build the economy and social security to overcome high prices.”

Yoshihiko Noda, president of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, called in Kunitomi, Miyazaki Prefecture, for the 8% consumption tax on food products to be temporarily cut to zero. “We will implement responsible tax reductions,” Noda said.

Hirofumi Yoshimura, leader of the Japan Innovation Party, said in Osaka that “the burden of social insurance premiums is too high,” and expressed his intention to work on reducing the burden on the working-age population.

Tomoko Tamura, leader of the Japanese Communist Party, spoke in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, expressing her determination to “force [the ruling parties] to lose their majority” in the upper house as well. In Shimbashi, Tokyo, Democratic Party for the People leader Yuichiro Tamaki appealed for an increase in take-home pay.

Taro Yamamoto, head of the Reiwa Shinsengumi, stressed in Shinjuku, Tokyo, that a consumption tax cut is necessary. Sohei Kamiya, representative of the Sanseito, emphasized the need for policies related to foreign nationals during remarks in Ginza, Tokyo.

Mizuho Fukushima, leader of the Social Democratic Party, and Naoki Hyakuta, representative of the Conservative Party of Japan, also made campaign speeches in Tokyo.