Tokyo goes to the polls as pandemic-shadowed Olympics loom

FILE PHOTO: A jogger runs past a newly installed Olympic rings for celebrating the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games in Yokohama, Japan, June 30, 2021. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

TOKYO (Reuters) -Tokyo residents went to the polls on Sunday to pick members of its metropolitan assembly just 19 days before the Olympic Games begin, as surveys showed Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was likely to win the vote.

The capital's election, in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, will have little impact on the long-planned Games, but is important as a bellwether for a lower house election that needs to be held by October.