Abe won his fourth term in office and held on to the two-thirds supermajority in order to implement policies on revising the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.

[5] Despite being disrupted by Typhoon Lan, the elections saw a slight increase in turnout rate of 53.68 percent but still was the second lowest in postwar Japan.

He became the longest-serving Prime Minister in the history of the country in August 2020, but resigned shortly after achieving this due to health issues.

Under the postwar constitution drafted in 1947, the interpretation of Article 7 states that the cabinet may instruct the Emperor to dissolve the House of Representatives before the end of term at will.

[10] The Democratic Party suffered a considerable defeat at the hands of the ruling coalition in the election, in which the Abe government took almost two-thirds of the seats.

[11][12] After the election, Defense Minister Tomomi Inada resigned in connection with another scandal involving the Japan Self-Defense Forces concealing evidence of a battle in South Sudan.

[13] The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe began publicly discussing the possibility of an election in mid-September 2017, as the North Korea crisis was ongoing.

The liberal wing surrounding the deputy president Yukio Edano announced the formation of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan on 2 October 2017.

[14] Opposition politicians claim Abe called the election partly to evade further questioning in parliament over his alleged misuse of power in securing approval for a veterinary college campus in Imabari.

[18][19] Several U.S.-Japan policy experts, including James Zumwalt and Michael Green, opined in October that the election was unlikely to have a major impact on policy as the LDP was expected to retain control; however, there was anxiety about the prospect of a leadership vacuum if Abe was eventually forced to resign as head of the LDP.

[47][48] Nevertheless, the CDP finishing second led to Kibō no Tō dissolving in 2018 (with Shigefumi Matsuzawa reviving the party in a smaller capacity) and merging into the Democratic Party For the People, which subsequently largely merged into a refounded CDP, with the exception of a splinter group led by Yuichiro Tamaki.