After Masako Ōwaki left the party, Abe became her successor in 2003 as chair of the SDP's Political Research Council.

Before the Shūgiin election in 2012, Abe left the SDP[3] and joined the TPJ, founded by governor of Shiga Prefecture Yukiko Kada.

Abe and Kada contacted the Green Wind party, which had four Diet members, over a possible merger, but the talks were not successful.

Following the dissolution of the Green Wind at the end of 2013, Abe joined the Democratic Party before the 2014 Shūgiin election.

She was defeated by less than 1000 votes behind Tsuyoshi Hoshino, but achieved the number 1 on the list of Democrats in the proportional electoral block South Kantō and was surely elected.

[6] In 2022 she took part in a multi-party group to create a new legal bill to support women struggling with issues of finance and domestic violence.