By early 2010, Masuzoe had become an extremely popular political figure, with opinion polls suggesting that he was the public's most favored prime ministerial candidate by a wide margin. In a Kyodo News poll in March 2010, 23.7% of respondents named him as the best candidate for prime minister, compared to only 8.3% who chose second-ranked incumbent prime minister Yukio Hatoyama. The Liberal Democratic Party at the same time had incurred a massive general election defeat in August 2009, and its approval ratings continued to plummet following the election of Sadakazu Tanigaki as party president in September 2009.