Poll: Eisenkot's Yashar Opens Big Lead on Netanyahu's Likud, but Neither Bloc Reaches Majority | Israel Politics Post
Poll: Eisenkot's Yashar Opens Big Lead on Netanyahu's Likud, but Neither Bloc Reaches Majority
A survey published via The Times of Israel's sister site Zman Yisrael put the anti-Netanyahu bloc at 54 seats and the pro-Netanyahu bloc at 49, with Yashar six seats ahead of Likud and neither camp near the 61-seat threshold.
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By Israel Politics Post Staff·Published
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for court; Yashar party chair Gadi Eisenkot visits the Nova festival site · Source: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90; Yonatan Sindel/Flash90, via The Times of Israel
A poll published Thursday by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel's Hebrew-language sister site, found that opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party has opened up a significant lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, though the survey still shows neither political camp reaching the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority.
The poll puts the anti-Netanyahu bloc at 54 seats against 49 for the pro-Netanyahu bloc, with Arab parties projected to win 13 seats and the nonaligned Reservists party four. Within that, Yashar leads Likud by a wide six-seat margin, 26 seats to 20. Further down the ballot, Ofer Winter's right-wing People of Israel party comes in just under the 3.25 percent electoral threshold at 2.8 percent, while the centrist Blue and White registers only 1.2 percent, both short of entering the Knesset at all.
The survey, conducted October 14-15 among 500 respondents, carries a margin of error of roughly 4.4 percentage points. A separate Channel 13 poll released around the same time showed a tighter race, with Netanyahu's bloc narrowly ahead, 51 seats to 50.
With multiple polls showing results within their respective margins of error and neither bloc near a governing majority, the final days before the October 27 vote are shaping up as a contest over which smaller parties clear the electoral threshold, a question that could decide the next government as much as the lead between the two main blocs does.
