Behind her popular campaign slogan mottainai (translating roughly to "Don't Waste"), Gov.

Kada captured 420,000 votes, which was the largest total of any in the history of Shiga Prefecture's gubernatorial elections.

[3] In May 2014, Kada published a release on her official website stating her intention not to contest the election scheduled for July of that year.

1 as independent supported by the centre-left opposition (CDP, DPFP, JCP, SDP), but lost narrowly by about 5,000 votes to Liberal Democratic incumbent Toshitaka Ōoka.

In the 2019 election to the national House of Councillors, she challenged Liberal Democratic incumbent Takeshi Ninoyu in Shiga and narrowly won by less than 14,000 votes prefecture-wide.