Poll: 86% of Likud voters back Netanyahu over Edelstein as party leader

A Channel 12 poll finds that if elections were held today, Likud would emerge the largest party, but a bloc led by Benjamin Netanyahu would not be able to form a majority government, holding only 56 of the 120 Knesset seats.

The results read as such:

Likud: 34
Yesh Atid: 18
Shas: 9
Blue and White: 8
Yamina: 7
United Torah Judaism: 7
Labor: 7
Joint List: 6
Religious Zionism: 6
Meretz: 5
Yisrael Beytenu: 5
New Hope: 4
Ra’am: 4

The survey also tests the projected outcome if Likud was led by Yuli Edelstein, who announced yesterday he would challenge Netanyahu for the Likud leadership.

In such a scenario, the seat distribution would look wildly different: Likud would win 20 seats; Yesh Atid 20; Religious Zionism 11; Shas 11; and Blue and White 11, hypothetically giving Edelstein enough leeway to form a diverse government despite winning fewer seats.

Among Likud members polled by the network, 68 percent say they disagree with Edelstein’s statement that a Netanyahu-led Likud won’t return to power, 17% agree, and 15% say they don’t know.

A whopping 86% of the Likud voters say they would back Netanyahu in party primaries, while 6% back Edelstein, and the rest were undecided, according to the survey. Likud primaries are not currently scheduled to be held in the near future.