Overview

• Mainichi’s Oct. 1 tally shows Shinjirō Koizumi leading among Diet members with 82 declared backers, followed by Yoshimasa Hayashi at about 60 and Sanae Takaichi near 40.
• Prefectural reports indicate party-member votes are a two-way contest between Takaichi and Koizumi at roughly 30% each (about 80–100 votes apiece), with Hayashi around 20%.
• Roughly 51 LDP lawmakers remain undecided or undisclosed, creating a fluid field as camps work phones, court faction elders, and try to peel support from rivals.
• The election uses 590 votes in the first round (295 lawmakers plus 295 party members); absent a majority, a runoff is decided by 295 lawmaker votes and 47 prefectural votes.
• The party-member electorate has shrunk to about 910,000 from roughly 1.05 million last year, a shift that could influence the balance between grass-roots and parliamentary support.