The support rating for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party stood at 33.5 percent, up 2.6 percentage points from the previous poll conducted immediately after official campaigning kicked off last month for the July 10 House of Councilors election, a survey showed Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the main opposition Democratic Party was supported by 10.4 percent in the latest poll taken from Sunday to Tuesday, little changed from the preceding survey.
According to the nationwide telephone survey, the LDP's coalition partner Komeito was supported by 5 percent, followed by the Japanese Communist Party at 4 percent, Initiatives from Osaka at 3.3 percent and the Social Democratic Party at 0.9 percent.
Those who did not support a particular party stood at 32.8 percent, down 6.9 points from the previous survey. Among them, 14.5 percent said they would vote for the LDP in the proportional representation section, 8.9 percent named the Democratic Party and 4.2 percent backed the JCP.
Each voter can cast two ballots — one for a constituency and the other for a proportional representation block.
Among 18- and 19-year-old respondents, who became eligible to vote under the recently revised Public Offices Election Law, 66.3 percent said they are very or somewhat interested in the upcoming election, up 21.2 points from the survey last month.
Across all age groups, 72.2 percent expressed interest in the election, up 4.6 points from the previous poll.
Of the 53,324 people surveyed, responses were received from 43,271.