| Niigata at-large district | |
| Type: | Parliamentary |
| Parl Name: | House of Councillors |
| District Label: | Prefecture |
| District: | Niigata |
| Electorate: | 1,842,601 (as of September 2022)[1] |
| Year: | 1947 |
| Seats: | 2 |
| Member Label: | Councillors |
| Member: | Class of 2019:Class of 2022: |
The is a constituency that represents Niigata Prefecture in the House of Councillors in the Diet of Japan. Since July 2019, it has two Councillors in the 242-member house, a decrease from its previous contingent of 3. Similar to other rural two seat districts in Northern Japan such as the Iwate at-large district, it often shows a willingness to buck the LDP and instead vote for opposition backed candidates, such as in 2019. Nonetheless, the LDP won the district by six points in the 2022 elections, and Uchikoshi only won by a margin of four points.
The constituency represents the entire population of Niigata Prefecture and has 1,925,565 registered voters as of September 2015.[2] Since the first House of Councillors election in 1947 Niigata has elected four Councillors to six-year terms, two at alternating elections held every three years. The district's number of voters is the third-lowest of the 10 prefectures that are represented by four Councillors; by comparison, the Hokkaido, Hyogo at-large district and Fukuoka districts each have more than 4 million voters but are represented by the same number of Councillors as Niigata.[2] To address this malapportionment in representation, a 2015 revision of the Public Officers Election Law decrease the representation of Niigata, Miyagi and Nagano districts to two Councillors while increasing Hyogo, Hokkaido and Fukuoka districts to six Councillors.[3] This change took effect at the 2016 election, after which time, Niigata will elect only one Councillor during every election.
The Councillors currently representing Niigata are:
| Class of 1947 | Election year | Class of 1950 (1947: 3-year term) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bunkichi Tamura (Ind.) | Kyōhei Shimojō (Social Democratic) | 1947 | Kazuo Kitamua (Liberal) | Yoshio Fujita (Ind.) |
| 1950 | Kazuo Kitamura (Liberal) | Toshiei Kiyosawa (Social Democratic) | ||
| Bunkichi Tamura (Ryokufūkai) | Yaheiji Saikawa (Liberal) | 1953 | ||
| 1955 by-election | Makie Koyanagi (LDP) | |||
| 1956 | ||||
| Goro Takeuchi (Social Democratic) | Yoshio Sato (LDP) | 1959 | ||
| 1962 | Zentaro Sugiyama (Social Democratic) | |||
| 1965 | ||||
| Takashi Sato (LDP) | 1967 by-election | |||
| 1968 | Jūichiro Tsukada (Ind.) | Makoto Matsui (Social Democratic) | ||
| Zentaro Sugiyama (Social Democratic) | 1971 | |||
| 1972 by-election | Takeo Kimi (LDP) | |||
| 1974 | Shiro Watari (LDP) | Yutaka Shitoma (Social Democratic) | ||
| Jūichiro Tsukada (LDP) | 1976 by-election | |||
| 1977 by-election | Shin Hasegawa (LDP) | |||
| Masao Yoshida (Social Democratic) | 1977 | |||
| 1980 | ||||
| Toshio Inamura (Social Democratic) | Yoshio Yoshikawa (LDP) | 1983 | ||
| 1986 | ||||
| 1989 by-election | Kinuko Ōfuchi (Social Democratic) | |||
| 1989 | ||||
| 1990 by-election | Kazuo Majima (LDP) | |||
| 1992 | ||||
| Michio Hasegawa (New Frontier) | 1995 | |||
| 1998 | Naoki Tanaka (LDP) | |||
| Yuko Mori (Liberal) | Kazuo Majima (LDP) | 2001 | ||
| Takahiro Kuroiwa (Ind.) | 2002 by-election | |||
| 2004[6] | Masamichi Kondo (Ind.) | |||
| Yuko Mori (DPJ) | Ichiro Tsukada (LDP) | 2007[7] | ||
| 2010[8] | Naoki Tanaka (DPJ) | Yaichi Nakahara (LDP) | ||
| Naoki Kazama (DPJ→DP→CDP) | 2013[9] | |||
| 2016[10] | Yuko Mori (Liberal) | |||
| Sakura Uchikoshi (CDP) | 2019[11] | |||
| 2022 | Kazuhiro Kobayashi (LDP) | |||