| Yuko Sato | |
| Native Name Lang: | ja |
| Birth Place: | Nagoya, Aichi |
| Birth Date: | 6 January 1963 |
| Alma Mater: | Junior College, Kinjo Gakuin University |
| Office3: | Member of the Aichi Prefectural Assembly |
| Term Start3: | 30 April 2007 |
| Term End3: | 21 July 2009 |
| Constituency3: | Higashi-ku, Nagoya |
| Office2: | Member of the House of Representatives |
| Term Start2: | 30 August 2009 |
| Term End2: | 16 November 2012 |
| Constituency2: | Aichi 1st |
| Predecessor2: | Takashi Kawamura |
| Successor2: | Hiromichi Kumada |
| Office: | Member of the Nagoya City Council |
| Term Start: | 13 April 2019 |
| Constituency: | Higashi-ku |
| Term Start1: | 12 April 2015 |
| Term End1: | 4 October 2017 |
| Constituency1: | Higashi-ku |
| Party: | Genzei Nippon |
| Otherparty: | Democratic |
is a Japanese politician and member of the Genzei Nippon party. She previously served one term in the House of Representatives of Japan's national Diet and currently serves on the Nagoya city council in Aichi Prefecture.
Sato was born in Nagoya city, Aichi Prefecture. In 1983 she graduated from the Junior College of Kinjo Gakuin University and became a kindergarten teacher. In September 2006 she became a secretary to Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) politician Takashi Kawamura, who represented Aichi 1st district in the House of Representatives of Japan's national Diet.
Sato contested the Nagoya City Higashi district of the Aichi Prefectural Assembly as a DPJ candidate in the April 2007 general election and claimed 58% of the vote.[1] In April 2009 resigned from the House of Representatives to contest the Nagoya mayoral election. Sato subsequently resigned from the Prefectural Assembly in July 2009 in order to contest Kawamura's seat as the DPJ candidate at the August 2009 general election. Sato won 54.4% of the vote in an election that brought the DPJ into power for the first time in its existence.[2]
Sato lodged resignation papers with DPJ officials in March 2011 in order to allow her to campaign on behalf of Genzei Nippon ("Tax Reduction Japan"),[3] a party formed by Kawamura in April 2010.[4] The DPJ did not immediately accept her resignation and instead considered expelling her from the party, but eventually granted her request to leave in May 2011.[3] This made her the new party's first member in the national Diet.
The national branch of Genzei Nippon, including Sato, merged with the Tomorrow Party of Japan in November 2012. Sato contested the December 2012 general election as a Tomorrow Party candidate and received 31% of the vote, but lost to Liberal Democratic Party candidate Hiromichi Kumada, who received 40% of the vote.[5] The Tomorrow Party received only 7% of the vote in the Tokai proportional representation block, which meant they only received 1 of the 21 seats available. Fellow Tomorrow Party candidate Katsumasa Suzuki lost the Aichi 15th district by a smaller margin than Sato lost her district, which meant that Suzuki claimed the sole PR block seat and Sato lost her place in the Diet.[6]
Sato returned to politics at the April 2015 unified local elections, winning one of the two seats in the Higashi district of the Nagoya city council and receiving 34.5% of the vote.[7]