Hokkaido at-large district

The Hokkaido at-large district is a constituency of the House of Councillors in the Diet of Japan (national legislature). It consists of the prefecture (dō) of Hokkai[dō] and is represented by six Councillors electing three at a time every three years by single non-transferable vote for six-year terms. In the election period from 2019 to 2022, Hokkaido's Councillors are (party affiliation as of September 2019):

• Gaku Hasegawa (LDP, Hosoda faction; term ends in 2022),
• Eri Tokunaga (DPFP; term ends in 2022),
• Yoshio Hachiro (CDP; term ends in 2022),
• Harumi Takahashi (LDP; term ends in 2025),
• Kenji Katsube (CDP; term ends in 2025) and
• Tsuyohito Iwamoto (LDP; term ends in 2025).

Hokkaido at-large district
北海道選挙区
Parliamentary constituency for the House of Councillors
Prefecture	Hokkaido
Electorate	4,424,026 (as of September 2022)^[1]
Current constituency
Created	1947
Seats	6
Councillors	Class of 2019:   Harumi Takahashi (LDP)   Kenji Katsube (CDP)   Tsuyohito Iwamoto (LDP) Class of 2022:   Gaku Hasegawa (LDP)   Eri Tokunaga (CDP)   Toshimi Funabashi (LDP)

After the House of Councillors had replaced the House of Peers according to the constitution of 1947, Hokkaido was represented by eight Councillors. In the early years of the 1955 System, all four seats went to the two major postwar parties, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). But smaller parties such as the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) had a chance to pick up seats in Hokkaido as the vote share sufficient to gain a seat was often significantly below 20 percent. The high number of candidates increased the risk of vote splitting for the major parties: In 1974, two incumbent LDP candidates and conservative independent Tatsuo Takahashi ranked 5th, 6th and 7th leaving all four seats to the center-left to left opposition parties Kōmeitō, JSP and JCP.

In a major reapportionment in 1994 the number of Councillors from Hokkaido was halved to four. It became effective in the 1995 and 1998 elections. During the period as two-member district, Hokkaidō usually split seats evenly between opposition and ruling parties like most two-member districts – although the Democrats unsuccessfully aimed for both seats in the 2004, 2007 and 2010 elections. In another 2015 reapportionment, effective in the two classes from the 2016 and 2019 elections, Hokkaidō's representation in the upper house was raised to six.

Elected Councillors

class of 1947				election year	class of 1950
#1 (1947: #1, 6-year term) (1950: #5, 3-year term)	#2 (1947: #2, 6-year term)	#3 (1947: #3, 6-year term)	#4 (1947: #4, 6-year term)		#1 (1947: #5, 3-year term)	#2 (1947: #6, 3-year term)	#3 (1947: #7, 3-year term)	#4 (1947: #8, 3-year term)
Junsuke Itaya † (JLP)	Sueji Hori (Indep.)	Makoto Chiba (JSP)	Misao Kaga (Indep.)^[party 1]	1947^[2]	Katsuzō Wakaki (Indep.)^[party 2]	Gengo Kinoshita (JSP)	Keiki Machimura (Indep.)^[party 3]	Yonesaburō Kobayashi (Indep.) ^[party 4]
Eiji Arima (DP)				1950 incl. by-election^[3]	Gengo Kinoshita (JSP)	Takashi Azuma (Farmers Cooperative Party)	Katsuzō Wakaki (JSP)	Sadayoshi Matsuura (Farmers Cooperative Party)
Makoto Chiba (JSP, left)	Katsutarō Kita (Indep.)^[party 5]	Sueji Hori (Yoshida LP)	Eiji Arima (Progressive)	1953^[4]
				1956^[5]	Hidetoshi Tomabechi (LDP)	Tadashi Ōya (JSP)	Takashi Azuma (JSP)	Shinichi Nishida (LDP)
Isao Yoneta (JSP)	Sueji Hori (LDP)	Ihei Ikawa (LDP)	Makoto Chiba (JSP)	1959^[6]
				1962^[7]	Tadashi Ōya (JSP)	Tokuichi Kobayashi (Indep.)^[party 6]	Chūzaburō Yoshida (JSP)
Seiichi Kawamura (JSP)	Ihei Ikawa (LDP)	Yūnosuke Takahashi (LDP)	Genshō Takeda (JSP)	1965^[8]
				1968^[9]		Yōichi Kawaguchi (LDP)	Shinichi Nishida (LDP)	Chūzaburō Yoshida (JSP)
Yūnosuke Takahashi (LDP)	Seiichi Kawamura (JSP)	Genshō Takeda (JSP)	Masaichi Iwamoto (LDP)	1971^[10]
				1974^[11]	Sadako Ogasawara (JCP)	Chūzaburō Yoshida (JSP)	Takakatsu Tsushima (JSP)	Takehiko Aizawa (Kōmeitō)
Shūji Kita (LDP)	Keiichi Nakamura (LDP)	Kaneyasu Marutani (JSP)	Seiichi Kawamura (JSP)	1977^[12]
				1980^[13]	Masaaki Takagi (LDP)	Masamitsu Iwamoto (LDP)		Sadako Ogasawara (JCP)
	Hisamitsu Sugano (JSP)		Masami Kudō (LDP)	1983^[14]
				1986^[15]	Takakatsu Tsushima (JSP)		Masaaki Takagi (LDP)
Yasuko Takemura (Indep.)^[party 7]		Shūji Kita (LDP)	Yūko Takasaki (JCP)	1989^[16]
				1992^[17]	Hisashi Kazama (Kōmeitō)	Noriyuki Nakao (Indep.)^[party 8]	Naoki Minezaki (JSP)	Masaaki Takagi (LDP)
Hisamitsu Sugano (JSP)	Katsuya Ogawa (NFP)	–		1995^[18]
				1998^[19]	Naoki Minezaki (DPJ)	Yoshio Nakagawa (LDP)	–
Chūichi Date (LDP)	Katsuya Ogawa (DPJ)			2001^[20]
				2004^[21]	Yoshio Nakagawa (LDP)	Naoki Minezaki (DPJ)
Katsuya Ogawa (DPJ)	Chūichi Date (LDP)			2007^[22]
				2010^[23]	Gaku Hasegawa (LDP)	Eri Tokunaga (DPJ)
Chūichi Date (LDP)	Katsuya Ogawa (DPJ)			2013^[24]
				2016^[25]		Eri Tokunaga (DP)	Yoshio Hachiro (DP)	–
Harumi Takahashi (LDP)	Kenji Katsube (CDP)	Tsuyohito Iwamoto (LDP)	–	2019^[26]

1. joined Ryokufūkai
2. joined JSP
3. joined Ryokufūkai
4. joined JLP
5. joined Ryokufūkai
6. joined LDP
7. JSP support
8. JSP support

Recent election results

Notes:

• Decimals from anbunhyō ("fractional proportional votes" from ambiguous votes) omitted; note that the rounded whole numbers may still include fractions of numbers >2 of ambiguous votes and do not necessarily represent "whole" voters
• (2016 only) (*): ineligible as runner-up replacement (kuriage-tōsen), lost deposit

2019^[26]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	LDP	Harumi Takahashi	828,220	34.4	new
	CDP	Kenji Katsube	523,737	21.7	new
	LDP	Tsuyohito Iwamoto	454,285	18.8	new
	JCP	Kazuya Hatayama	265,862	11.0	new
	DPP	Nami Haraya	227,174	9.4	new
	N-Koku	Takahira Yamamoto	63,308	2.6	new
	Meeting to Decide About Euthanasia	Osamu Nakamura	23,785	1.0	-0.1
	HRP	Yoshinori Moriyama	13,724	0.6	-0.2
	The Worker's Party aiming for liberation of labor	Seiji Iwase	10,108	0.4	new

2016^[25]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	LDP (K)	Gaku Hasegawa	648,269	25.5	-7.8
	DP (SDP Hokkaidō)	Eri Tokunaga	559,996	22.0	-3.6
	DP (SDP Hokkaidō)	Yoshio Hachiro	491,129	19.3	new
	LDP (K, NPD)	Katsuhiro Kakiki	482,688	19.0	new
	JCP	Tsuneto Mori	239,564	9.4	(to 2013) -2.0
	Kokoro	Kazuo Satō (*)	34,092	1.3	new
	Support no party	Osamu Nakamura (*)	29,072	1.1	new
	Independent	Yoshihiro Iida (*)	26,686	1.0	new
	HRP	Yoshinori Moriyama (*)	21,006	0.8	(to 2013) -0.2
	Independent	Kan'yō Mizukoshi (*)	12,944	0.5	new

2013^[24]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	LDP (NK)	Chūichi Date	903,693	37.7
	DPJ	Katsuya Ogawa	583,995	24.4
	NPD	Takahiro Asano	352,434	14.7
	JCP	Tsuneto Mori	272,102	11.4
	YP	Takanobu Azumi	261,802	10.9
	HRP	Yoshinori Moriyama	23,194	1.0
Turnout			2,502,360	54.41^[27]	(to 2010) -7.48

2010^[23]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	LDP	Gaku Hasegawa	948,267	34.3
	DPJ	Eri Tokunaga	708,523	25.6
	DPJ	Masashi Fujikawa	567,167	20.5
	YP	Ken'ichi Nakagawa	320,992	11.6
	JCP	Kazuya Hatayama	200,231	7.2
	HRP	Makoto Ōbayashi	22,166	0.8
Turnout			2,849,955	61.89^[28]	(to 2007) -0.51

2007^[22]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	DPJ	Katsuya Ogawa	1,018,597	36.0
	LDP (NK)	Chūichi Date	757,463	26.8
	Independent (NPD, DPJ, PNP)	Kaori Sahara	621,497	22.0
	JCP	Kazuya Hatayama	206,463	7.3
	Independent	Hideyoshi Hashiba	103,282	3.7
	SDP	Takao Asano	79,474	2.8
	Independent	Masayuki Arakawa	22,154	0.8
	Ishin	Nobuhito Sendai	18,234	0.6
Turnout			2,907,079	62.40^[29]	(to 2004) +0.66

2004^[21]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	LDP	Yoshio Nakagawa	741,831	26.7
	DPJ	Naoki Minezaki	618,277	22.3
	DPJ	Masahito Nishikawa	552,993	19.9
	Independent	Muneo Suzuki	485,382	17.5
	JCP	Chiharu Oka	254,338	9.2
	SDP	Keiko Yamauchi	106,631	3.8
	Ishin	Nobuhito Sendai	19,020	0.7

2001^[20]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	LDP	Chūichi Date	985,274	39.3
	DPJ	Katsuya Ogawa	683,704	27.2
	JCP	Satoshi Miyauchi	284,575	11.3
	LP	Masahito Nishikawa	196,348	7.8
	SDP	Yoshiko Sugiyama	165,670	6.6
	WP	Tamiko Matsumura	87,597	3.5
	Independent	Mitsuhiro Yokoyama	36,119	1.4
	LL	Akifumi Kumagai	33,500	1.3
	NSP	Nobuyuki Saitō	25,261	1.0
	Ishin	Nobuhito Sendai	11,469	0.5

1998^[19]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	DPJ	Naoki Minezaki	804,611	31.2
	LDP	Yoshio Nakagawa	723,786	28.1
	JCP	Tomoko Uchiyama	605,119	23.5
	LP	Kentarō Ono	161,505	6.3
	SDP	Shirō Kayano	146,159	5.7
	NSP	Masami Mizuyoshi	34,374	1.3
	YLP	Ken'ichi Sawada	33,390	1.3
	LL	Ryōko Matsukawa	32,557	1.3
	Independent	Hideo Murata	28,480	1.1
	Ishin	Nobuhito Sendai	7,249	0.3

1995^[18]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	JSP	Hisamitsu Sugano	563,029	27.5
	NFP	Katsuya Ogawa	511,139	25.3
	LDP	Yoshitaka Kimoto	488,807	24.2
	JCP	Yūko Takasaki	392,714	19.5
	New Era	Etsuko Yoshino	40,106	2.0
	Independent	Hiroshi Maeya	21,716	1.1

References

• House of Councillors:

1. "総務省｜令和4年9月1日現在選挙人名簿及び在外選挙人名簿登録者数" [Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications - Number of registered voters as of 1 September 2022] (in Japanese). Retrieved 2023-01-04.
2. 参議院>第1回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
3. 参議院>第2回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
4. 参議院>第3回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
5. 参議院>第4回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
6. 参議院>第5回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
7. 参議院>第6回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
8. 参議院>第7回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
9. 参議院>第8回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
10. 参議院>第9回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
11. 参議院>第10回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). JANJAN. Retrieved 2010-05-09.
12. 参議院>第11回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
13. 参議院>第12回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
14. 参議院>第13回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
15. 参議院>第14回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
16. 参議院>第15回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
17. 参議院>第16回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
18. 参議院>第17回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
19. 参議院>第18回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
20. 参議院>第19回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
21. 参議院>第20回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
22. 参議院>第21回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
23. 参議院>第22回参議院議員選挙>北海道選挙区. senkyo.janjan.jp ザ･選挙 (in Japanese). Heartbeats. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
24. 参院選2013>選挙結果>選挙区>北海道. Yomiuri Shimbun (in Japanese). Retrieved 2013-07-22.
25. Yomiuri Online, House of Councillors election 2016: Results in Hokkaidō
26. NHK, House of Councillors election 2019: Results in Hokkaidō
27. Hokkai-dō/prefectural government (Hokkai[-]dōchō), electoral commission: past election results, 23rd House of Councillors election, turnout
28. Hokkaidō government, electoral commission: past election results, 22rd regular election of the House of Councillors, turnout
29. Hokkaidō government, electoral commission: past election results, 21st regular election of the House of Councillors, turnout