Shaping up to be a bad year for anything named "Democratic Party"

TOKYO—Japanese voters issued a rebuke to the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, 10 months after giving the party the keys to power in a historic regime change, according to television-network exit polls.

Local media exit polls predicted that the DPJ would win fewer than 50 seats in Sunday’s contest. The DPJ needs to win 60 seats of the 121 contested seats to secure a majority by itself, or 57 together with its coalition partner. Broadcaster TBS forecasted that the Democrats would only get 48 seats.