Fifty-five per cent of respondents said they supported the bid in the poll run by newspaper The Asahi Shimbun.

Young people particularly backed the Games, with 70 per cent of people in their 30s or younger saying they supported the candidacy.

Only 38 per cent said they did not support the bid and enthusiasm is cooler in Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's main islands where Sapporo is the capital.

Residents who responded there were almost equally split between supporting and not supporting the bid.

This contrasts with the response in Tokyo to a survey conducted in 2012, when 60 per cent backed hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics in the capital.

Those Games were later postponed to last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nearly 1,500 people returned valid responses to the survey.

It was carried out as the crisis involving Tokyo 2020 Executive Board member Haruyuki Takahashi continues to unfurl.

Prosecutors are investigating allegations that Takahashi accepted bribes in return for helping companies become sponsors of last year's Olympics.

He is among those to have been arrested alongside officials from retailer Aoki Holdings, including its founder Hironori Aoki.

Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, the chairman of publisher Kadokawa Corporation, has also been detained. 

Yoshirō Mori, the former Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee President and previously the Prime Minister of Japan, was voluntarily questioned by prosecutors.

Police also raided the offices of Daiko Advertising Inc, a consulting firm.

Former Olympics Minister Toshiaki Endo and Japanese Olympic Committee President Yasuhiro Yamashita have both expressed concern that the scandal could impact Sapporo's chances of hosting in 2030.

The 2030 Winter Olympics will be the first awarded using the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Future Host Commission system.

This involves opening talks with candidate cities, instead of a traditional bidding race.

A preferred choice will be proposed by the Commission to the IOC Executive Board, which will then arrange a vote at a future IOC Session.

This was due to take place at the Session in Mumbai next year, but problems at the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) have prompted the IOC to delay the meeting, and the ballot, until September or October next year.

The IOC has issued the IOA with a "final warning" after problems with its elections and the Session faces being moved away from India.

Vancouver in Canada and Salt Lake City in the United States are also in the race for 2030, along with Sapporo. 

The Japanese city hosted the Winter Olympics in 1972, and the Asian Winter Games in 2017.

Earlier this month, Sapporo Mayor Katsuhiro Akimoto cancelled a planned visit to the IOC headquarters in Lausanne where he was due to meet President Thomas Bach.