I agree that Ishin no Kai won mostly despite Ishihara.
In fact, the party mostly won in Osaka-fu and Kansai.
Thus, the party7s strong showing was much more because of support for Hashimoto and perhaps the expectation that he is the ultimate power in that party.

"I wonder why the voters reply as the most important issue of the day, the economy and social welfare, in all the surveys across to board, and why they have been selecting these two issues by a wide margin for some time?"

It's worth noting that over the past six months or so foreign policy and security issues, usually far behind economic issues, significantly closed the gap, at least temporarily. An NTV poll in September found that foreign policy issues finished third as the top priority of voters, at just over 20%, just below social security and tax policy at 23%, and not so far behind economic and employment policy at 30%. By contrast earthquake recovery was at 18%. Normally foreign policy has been finishing as the fifth most cited priority, or lower. Another NTV poll in December found that foreign policy had fallen back to #4, although it still led earthquake recovery, education, and deficit reduction as policy priorities.

Best Regards,

Paul Midford