Gantz maintains lead over Netanyahu in latest poll; coalition falls to 52 seats
Survey shows National Unity party chief also has slight lead over PM in terms of suitability to lead country
A TV poll published Sunday indicated that the opposition continues to maintain a lead with the Israeli electorate, being projected to win a majority of 63 seats in the 120-member Knesset if elections were held today.
The survey had Benny Gantz’s National Unity party continuing to lead the pack with 29 seats, followed by Likud with 26 seats. Opposition Leader Yair Lapid takes third place with 18 seats, followed by Shas (10), Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit on a joint slate (9), United Torah Judaism (7) and Yisrael Beytenu (6). Meretz, Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al win 5 seats each. Labor and Balad fail to pass the electoral threshold.
The results would leave the current coalition with 52 seats, down from 64 in the current Knesset. Opposition parties that made up the previous government would win 63 seats, with the non-aligned Hadash-Ta’al majority Arab slate closing out 120 seats.
On suitability for the premiership, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a lead over Lapid with 39% to 28%, but in a head-to-head with Gantz, Netanyahu falls to 36% while the National Unity chief gets 39%.
The survey also found that a hypothetical party representing the national protest movement would win 8 seats — down from 10 in a previous poll. The party would take seats from other opposition parties but would not much change the resulting blocs.
The protest movement hasn’t indicated it is interested in entering the electoral arena.
Israel’s opinion polls can often be unreliable, but they influence politicians and voters. No elections are currently scheduled for the next three years.
The poll was carried out by the Midgam research firm along with online polling firm iPanel through phone and online surveys. It questioned 505 respondents indicative of the national population and had a margin of error of 4.4%.
