Likud polls as largest party but would be unable to form gov’t if elections called
Netanyahu’s approval ratings rise; Ben Gvir’s party slips; almost two-thirds believe Yoav Gallant should remain defense minister
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party would win the most seats in the Knesset if elections were held today, but he would most likely be unable to form a government, according to a poll by Channel 12 on Sunday.
While the Likud would win 25 seats, the next four biggest parties would be ones currently in the Opposition: Benny Gantz’s National Unity, which would win 21 seats; Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which would win 15; Avigdor Liberman’s Israel Beytenu, which would win 14, and Yair Golan’s Democrats — a union of Labor and Meretz — which would win 11 seats, according to the poll.
Ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism would win 10 and eight seats respectively, followed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit with six seats — a fall from nine in a Channel 12 poll 10 days ago.
Arab majority parties Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al rounded out the poll, receiving five seats each.
The survey, which was conducted before Gideon Sa’ar announced Sunday that he would be rejoining the government, found that his New Hope party, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, and the Arab nationalist Balad party would not cross the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent of the vote.
But while Netanyahu’s Likud would be the largest party, his right-wing, religious bloc would only amount to 49 seats in the Knesset, compared to the Opposition’s 66, which would include Ra’am but not Hadash-Ta’al. Even without Ra’am, the bloc would still win a majority 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
If former prime minister Naftali Bennett returned to politics and ran in the next election, Likud would remain the largest party at 23 seats, with Bennett’s party coming in at 20 and Gantz’s at 13.
The Netanyahu-led bloc of Likud, Shas, UTJ and Otzma Yehudit would win even fewer seats in this scenario — just 46, while Bennett’s party along with Opposition factions Yesh Atid, National Unity, The Democrats and Yisrael Beytenu would win 69 seats (or 64 without Ra’am).
As recent polls have shown, Netanyahu is still found by respondents to be better suited for the role of prime minister than Gantz or Lapid, but falls behind Bennett when the two are pitted against each other in that question.
In Sunday’s poll, Netanyahu was preferred as prime minister by 38-29% over Gantz, and by 38-27% over Lapid, the poll says. Bennett was preferred to Netanyahu by 38-35%, which marked an improvement for Netanyahu, since the gap between them was 11% in the last poll.
The poll also showed rising approval for Netanyahu’s handling of the war: 53% said he was doing a bad job and 43% a good job. Ten days ago, a Channel 12 poll found 60% said he was doing a bad job and 35% said he was doing a good job.
Respondents were also asked about reports of Netanyahu potentially firing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replacing him with Sa’ar.
A heavy majority of respondents (64%) said that Gallant should remain defense minister, and he was given a higher approval rating (58%) than Netanyahu (43%).
For now, Netanyahu has decided against replacing Gallant, sufficing with appointing Sa’ar as a minister without a portfolio on Sunday.
The Midgam poll was taken Sunday by phone and over the internet, among 502 representative respondents, with a 4.4% margin of error.
Thus the survey reflected respondents’ views in the wake of the IDF’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Friday, but not Sa’ar entry into Netanyahu’s coalition.
