Eisenkot Bloc Leads Netanyahu in Two New Polls, but Falls Short of a Majority Without Arab Parties
A Channel 13 News poll published Monday evening projects that if an election were held today, the bloc of parties backing Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot would win 51 Knesset seats, compared with 50 for the bloc backing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A Channel 12 News poll, also published Monday evening, shows a stronger showing for Eisenkot's bloc, with 55 seats to 51 for Netanyahu's.
As in a long string of recent polls, both surveys point to a clear majority for Netanyahu's opponents. But a boycott by some parties in the Eisenkot bloc of cooperation with the Arab parties leaves the bloc short of 60 seats.
In the Channel 13 poll, Yashar and Likud hold steady at 20 and 18 seats, respectively. Together gains two seats compared with the previous poll, rising to 14. As in that survey, the Democrats and the Joint List each win nine seats. Yisrael Beiteinu loses one seat and falls to eight.
United Torah Judaism and Otzma Yehudit each lose one seat, dropping to seven, where they are tied with Shas, which holds steady, and Religious Zionism, which gains one. As before, the United Arab List wins six seats. Amcha Yisrael, led by Ofer Winter, gains one seat and rises to five, while the Reservists and Economic Party wins four. The Ultra-Orthodox Public Party, at 1 percent, falls short of the electoral threshold.
In the Channel 12 poll, Yashar gains one seat and wins 24. Likud and Together each gain one seat as well, rising to 21 and 14, respectively. The Joint List gains one seat and reaches nine, matching the Democrats, who hold steady. Yisrael Beiteinu loses one seat and falls to eight.
Shas and Otzma Yehudit are unchanged at eight seats each. Religious Zionism wins seven, one more than in the previous poll. United Torah Judaism holds steady at seven seats and the United Arab List at five.
The parties that fail to cross the threshold in the Channel 12 poll are Amcha Yisrael (2.8 percent), the Reservists and Economic Party (2.1 percent) and the Ultra-Orthodox Public Party (0.2 percent).
The Channel 13 poll was conducted Sunday by The Index (Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepkov) in cooperation with Stat-Net (Yousef Makladeh), Project Midgam (Dr. Ariel Ayalon) and Askaria (Dudi Dror). It surveyed 1,016 respondents and has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.
The Channel 12 poll was conducted by the Midgam Institute, headed by Mano Geva, in cooperation with iPanel. It surveyed 507 respondents out of 2,502 invited to take part, through online and telephone interviews. The margin of error is 4.4 percent.