3rd TV poll predicts renewed gridlock, with Netanyahu’s bloc 1 seat shy of majority

A television poll broadcast this evening has opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-religious bloc winning 60 seats — one seat shy of a majority — in next week’s elections, the third survey in the past two nights to predict further parliamentary deadlock after the November 1 vote.

According to Channel 13 news, Netanyahu’s Likud will be the largest party with 31 seats.

Likud was followed by Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, which grew to a record 27 seats in the network’s poll, with the gain coming at the expense of its left-wing allies Labor and Meretz.

The far-right Religious Zionism was predicted to get 14 seats, while the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism received eight and seven, respectively. All three parties are aligned with Netanyahu.

National Unity, a center-right alliance led by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, picked up 11 seats in the survey, while Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman’s right-wing secularist Yisrael Beiteinu rose to six seats, up one from Channel 13’s last poll.

Four parties were forecast to win four seats apiece — Labor, Meretz, the majority-Arab Hadash-Ta’al and the Islamist Ra’am.

The nationalist Jewish Home party, led by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, came short of the minimum vote threshold needed to enter the Knesset.

The survey, conducted by pollster Kamil Fuchs, included 801 respondents and had a 3.5 percent margin of error.