 | ||
Kanagawa 2nd district (神奈川県第2区, Kanagawa-ken-dai-ni-ku) 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 consists of Yokohama city's Nishi (West), Minami (South) and Kōnan wards. As of 2012, 425,997 eligible voters were registered in the district giving it, like many urban districts, a vote weight well below the national average and more than twice as many voters as the highest vote weight district Kōchi 3.
Before the electoral reform of the 1990s the area had been split between the four-member 1st district and the five-member 4th district.
The 2nd district's only representative since the electoral reform has been Liberal Democrat Yoshihide Suga (without factional affiliation), a former member of the Yokohama city council who entered the Diet as a newcomer in 1996. He was able to beat Akihiro Ueda (New Frontier Party, ex-Kōmeitō), one of the incumbents for the pre-reform 4th district. In subsequent elections he defended the seat against Democrats Akira Ōide and Kazuya Miura. Suga was Internal Affairs Minister in the First Abe cabinet and Chief Cabinet Secretary in the Second Abe Cabinet.