Rising political party Sanseito is the third-most popular pick among voters ahead of Sunday's election for the Upper House, a Jiji Press opinion poll for July showed Thursday.

The survey found that 6.9% of respondents plan to vote for Sanseito in the Upper House's proportional representation bloc, up 3.4 percentage points from June and improving its ranking among political parties from sixth place.

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party remained the front-runner at 20.9%, albeit down 3.6 points.

In second place was the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, up 0.8 points at 9.1%, while the Democratic Party for the People was fourth at 6.1%, up 0.1 points.

Komeito, the LDP's coalition partner, came next at 4.9%, up 0.9 point, followed by Reiwa Shinsengumi at 3.6%, up 0.5 point, Nippon Ishin no Kai at 2.7%, down 1.7 points.

The Conservative Party of Japan logged 2.3%, up 1.6 points, the Japanese Communist Party 1.9%, down 0.3 point, and the Social Democratic Party 0.9%, up 0.4 point.

The proportion of respondents who favor no particular party came to 38.2%.

By age group, those under 30 backed the DPP most at 13.4%, followed by Sanseito at 12.5% and the LDP at 10.7%. All older generations favored the LDP most.

The proportion of respondents who want to see the LDP and Komeito retain their majority in the Upper House in Sunday's election came to 31.1%, less than the 42.5% who hope to see the opposition bloc take the majority.

Meanwhile, 36.1% said they hope that the ruling bloc will comprise the LDP, Komeito and one or more of the opposition parties after the Upper House poll, while 24.7% hope for a government led by the opposition and 18.6% want a government comprising just the LDP and Komeito.

As measures to tackle inflation, 67.4% preferred consumption tax cuts over cash handouts, against 21.5% saying the opposite.

A total of 22.8% said that information on social media is important in deciding whom to cast their votes for, while 64.8% said that it is not important and 12.4% said neither or that they do not know.

As for Ishiba's Cabinet, the public approval rating dropped 6.2 percentage points from the previous month to 20.8% in July, its lowest ever level. The disapproval rating jumped 6.6 points to 55.0%, the highest since Ishiba took office last October.

The support rate fell below the previous low of 20.9% marked in May. Approval had picked up to 27.0% in June, apparently due to the appointment of Shinjiro Koizumi, son of popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, as agriculture minister, before falling again.

The interview survey, conducted over the four days through Monday, covered 2,000 people age 18 and over in Japan. Valid responses came from 59% of them.