Kanagawa 1st district

Kanagawa 1st district
Parliamentary constituency for the House of Representatives
A map of the House of Representatives constituencies in Yokohama
Prefecture	Kanagawa
Proportional District	Southern Kanto
Electorate	428,115 (2020)[1]
Current constituency
Created	1994
Seats	One
Party	Constitutional Democratic
Representative	Gō Shinohara
Created from	Kanagawa 1st district (1947–1993) Kanagawa 4th district (1975–1993)
Municipalities	Naka, Isogo and Kanazawa wards in Yokohama

Kanagawa 1st district (神奈川県第1区, Kanagawa-ken dai-ikku or 神奈川1区, Kanagawa ikku) is a single-member constituency of the House of Representatives, the lower house of the national Diet of Japan. It is located in eastern Kanagawa Prefecture and covers the central downtown and southeastern parts of the prefectural capital of Yokohama, namely the Naka (centre), Isogo and Kanazawa wards. It is among many other things home to the Yokohama city hall and the Kanagawa prefectural government building. As of December 1, 2020, 428,115 eligible voters were registered in the district.^[1]

Before the electoral reform of the 1990s the area had been split between the four-member 1st district and the five-member 4th district.

In the first post-reform election of 1996, the 1st district was mainly contested by Liberal Democrat Jun Matsumoto (Asō faction), a former member of the city council and newcomer in national politics, Democrat Ken'ichirō Satō (formerly LDP, Fukuda faction, then New Party Sakigake member in the 1990s), an incumbent for the pre-reform 4th district, and newcomer Masahiko Okabe for the New Frontier Party. Matsumoto narrowly won, but Satō kept a seat via the newly introduced proportional representation. In 2000, Satō beat Matsumoto who then also failed to win a proportional seat but retook the 1st district in the 2003 and 2005 general elections. Satō retired from politics in 2007, but in the national landslide Democratic victory of 2009, first time candidate Mieko Nakabayashi won the 1st district against Matsumoto. Matsumoto was Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary in the Abe cabinet, Satō was chairman of the House of Representatives committee on the environment in the 1990s and chaired the disciplinary committee in 2004.

In the landslide Democratic defeat of 2012, Nakabayashi lost more than 84,000 votes compared to 2009. Matsumoto lost only less than 17,000 votes and regained the district. In February 2021, after it emerged that Matsumoto had visited a club in Ginza during a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic,^[2] he left the LDP and ran as an independent candidate in the 2021 election where he lost to CDP candidate Gō Shinohara.

List of members representing the district

Member	Party	Dates	Electoral history	Notes
Jun Matsumoto	Liberal Democratic	October 21, 1996 – June 2, 2000	Elected in 1996. Lost re-election.	Lost re-election in the Southern Kanto PR block.
Ken'ichirō Satō	Democratic	June 26, 2000 – October 10, 2003	Re-elected in 2000. Lost re-election.	Redistricted from the former 4th district and Re-elected in 1996 by the Southern Kanto PR block. Re-elected in 2003 by the Southern Kanto PR block.
Jun Matsumoto	Liberal Democratic	November 10, 2003 – July 21, 2009	Elected in 2003. Re-elected in 2005. Lost re-election.	Re-elected in 2009 by the Southern Kanto PR block.
Mieko Nakabayashi	Democratic	August 31, 2009 – November 16, 2012	Elected in 2009. Lost re-election.	Lost re-election in the Southern Kanto PR block.
Jun Matsumoto	Liberal Democratic	December 17, 2012 – February 1, 2021	Re-elected in 2012. Re-elected in 2014. Re-elected in 2017. Lost re-election.
	Independent	February 1, 2021 – October 14, 2021
Gō Shinohara	Constitutional Democratic	October 31, 2021 – present	Re-elected in 2021.	Elected in 2014 by the Southern Kanto PR block. Re-elected in 2017 by the Southern Kanto PR block.

Election results

2021 • 2017 • 2014 • 2012 • 2009 • 2005 • 2003 • 2000 • 1996

2021

General election 2021: Kanagawa's 1st^[3]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	CDP	Gō Shinohara	100,118	45.0
	Independent	Jun Matsumoto	76,064	34.2
	Ishin	Yoshiharu Asakawa (elected by PR)	46,271	20.8
Total votes			222,453	100.0
	CDP gain from Independent

2017

2017 Japanese general election^[4]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	LDP	Jun Matsumoto	103,070	47.8
	CDP	Gō Shinohara (re-elected by PR)	78,019	36.2
	Kibō no Tō	Kazuyoshi Nagashima	34,433	16.0
Total votes			215,522	100.0
	LDP hold

2014

2014 Japanese general election^[5]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	LDP	Jun Matsumoto	113,844	52.4
	Ishin	Gō Shinohara (elected by PR)	68,061	31.3
	JCP	Yukio Akashi	35,465	16.3
Total votes			217,370	100.0
	LDP hold

2012

2012 Japanese general election^[6]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	LDP	Jun Matsumoto	101,238	41.2
	Democratic	Mieko Nakabayashi	50,927	20.7
	Restoration	Kōichi Matsumoto	41,198	16.8
	Your	Yoriyuki Yamashita	36,706	14.9
	JCP	Yukio Akashi	15,664	6.4
Total votes			245,733	100.0
	LDP gain from Democratic

2009

2009 Japanese general election^[7]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Mieko Nakabayashi	135,211	48.1
	LDP	Jun Matsumoto (re-elected by PR)	117,840	41.9
	JCP	Ryōko Kōzai	18,898	6.7
	Independent	Seiichi Yamamoto	9,229	3.2
Total votes			281,178	100.0
	Democratic gain from LDP

2005

2005 Japanese general election^[8]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	LDP	Jun Matsumoto	161,702	58.3
	Democratic	Ken'ichirō Satō	95,601	34.4
	JCP	Osamu Takayama	20,216	7.3
Total votes			277,519	100.0
	LDP hold

2003

2003 Japanese general election^[9]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	LDP	Jun Matsumoto	111,730	47.6
	Democratic	Ken'ichirō Satō (re-elected by PR)	97,630	41.6
	JCP	Haruko Nakaie	15,331	6.5
	Social Democratic	Teizō Hayashi	10,243	4.4
Total votes			234,934	100.0
	LDP gain from Democratic

2000

2000 Japanese general election^[10]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Ken'ichirō Satō	91,578	40.1
	LDP	Jun Matsumoto	81,245	35.5
	JCP	Takashi Munakata	28,411	12.4
	Liberal	Hiroshi Iijima	23,783	10.4
	Liberal League	Kiyoshi Matsuda	3,593	1.6
Total votes			228,610	100.0
	Democratic gain from LDP

1996

1996 Japanese general election^[11]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	LDP	Jun Matsumoto	55,360	26.4
	Democratic	Ken'ichirō Satō (elected by PR)	54,494	26.0
	New Frontier	Masahisa Okabe	50,684	24.2
	JCP	Kimiko Tamura	26,686	12.7
	Social Democratic	Yumiko Hayashi	22,236	10.6
Total votes			209,460	100.0
	LDP win (new seat)

References

1. "選挙人名簿登録者数" [Number of registered voters]. Kanagawa Prefecture Election Commission (in Japanese). 2020.
2. Suga apologizes over lawmakers’ visit to Ginza nightclubs - Asahi Newspaper(02/02/2021)
3. "2021年衆議院総選挙 神奈川1区". NHK (in Japanese). Retrieved 2021-11-01.
4. 2017衆院選:衆議院選挙:選挙アーカイブス:NHK選挙WEB (in Japanese). Retrieved 2019-08-12.
5. 2014衆院選:衆議院選挙:選挙アーカイブス:NHK選挙WEB (in Japanese). Retrieved 2019-08-12.
6. 神奈川1区. The Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). Retrieved 2020-12-19.
7. 神奈川1区. The Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). Retrieved 2020-12-19.
8. 神奈川1区. The Asahi Shimbun (in Japanese). Retrieved 2020-12-19.
9. 第43回衆議院議員選挙 - 神奈川1区 (in Japanese). Retrieved 2020-12-19.
10. 第42回衆議院議員選挙 - 神奈川1区 (in Japanese). Retrieved 2020-12-19.
11. 第41回衆議院議員選挙 - 神奈川1区 (in Japanese). Retrieved 2020-12-19.