Netanyahu, Eisenkot neck and neck in new ToI poll, but both blocs still short of 61-seat majority

A new poll by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site, finds that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and ex-IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar are once again neck and neck, after Eisenkot had pulled ahead in recent weeks.

The result is markedly different from the previous week’s Zman Yisrael poll, which put Eisenkot’s Yashar at 26 seats. The change appears to be due to the Zionist Home party, led by Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper, which passes the minimum voter threshold in the polls for the first time this week, and is predicted to win four seats.

Also enjoying a small boost in this week’s poll is Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism, which is now predicted to win five seats following his merger with Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut.

Smotrich’s boost appears to come at the expense of right-wing ex-general Ofer Winter, whose new party is now predicted to fall below the threshold and miss out on entering the Knesset.

Despite the shift, neither side was forecast to be close to attaining a Knesset majority, with the two majority-Arab parties holding the balance of power.

The poll finds that if elections were to be held today, the pro-Netanyahu bloc would receive 50 seats out of a possible 120, while the anti-Netanyahu bloc would receive 55 seats, six short of a 61-seat majority.

The majority Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, are forecast to win 11 seats between them; six for the Joint List and five for Ra’am.

Another four seats would go to the center-right Zionist Home, which is not strictly aligned with either the pro- or anti-Netanyahu blocs.