福島知事に内堀氏３選　共産系新人破る

　任期満了に伴う福島県知事選は３０日投開票され、無所属現職の内堀雅雄氏（５８）が、無所属新人で元高校教諭の草野芳明氏（６６）＝共産推薦＝を破り、３選を果たした。投票率は４２．５８％（前回４５．０４％）。（2022/10/31-00:48）

Masao Uchibori won a third term as governor of the northeastern Japan prefecture of Fukushima in an election Sunday.
   Uchibori, 58, who ran in the gubernatorial election as an independent, beat his only rival, Yoshiaki Kusano, 66, also an independent.
   Supported by the prefectural chapters and headquarters of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, Komeito and the Democratic Party for the People, Uchibori capitalized on organizational power to collect votes.
   The incumbent succeeded in gaining widespread support by highlighting his responses to natural disasters that hit Fukushima in recent years, including Typhoon Hagibis, which caused record rainfalls in eastern Japan in 2019, and his efforts to achieve the prefecture's reconstruction from the 2011 nuclear accident at the disaster-crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. .
   Meanwhile, Kusano, a rookie candidate backed by the Japanese Communist Party, who formerly served as a high school teacher, stood against the planned release of treated radioactive water into the ocean from the Fukushima No. 1 plant and called for consolidating prefectural high schools. But he failed to gather enough votes.