Poll: Merger of Bennett, Lapid and Eisenkot would yield biggest party in next election, but not change overall result

A potential merger between three parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in this year’s election would yield the biggest Knesset party, far surpassing the ruling Likud, but wouldn’t significantly boost the overall anti-Netanyahu bloc compared to a scenario in which they run separately, according to a new survey conducted this week for Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site.

Channel 12 news reported this week that former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, head of the new Yashar! party, has proposed a major merger in the opposition between his party, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid and ex-prime minister Naftali Bennett’s new party, aiming to present a unified slate that will become the 120-member Knesset’s biggest faction.

The survey shows this goal being achieved. While the three parties get a combined 33 seats if they run separately — 18 for Bennett’s party, 8 for Yesh Atid and 7 for Yashar — this grows to 36 if they merge. Likud stands at 25 seats in both scenarios.

But this doesn’t translate into a game-changer regarding who is likely to form the next government, yielding a potential deadlock in both scenarios, in line with almost all polls from the past two years.

The parties in Netanyahu’s current 64-strong coalition get 53 seats — short of a majority — if the merger doesn’t go ahead, versus 52 if they do merge.

The non-Netanyahu-aligned parties get 67 seats in the first scenario and 68 in the second, but this doesn’t mean they can form a coalition since they include right-wing and centrist politicians who have vowed not to sit with Arab parties.

The survey finds that both Benny Gantz’s Blue and White and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism would squeak past the 3.25% electoral threshold with 4 seats each, unlike many recent polls that have predicted political demise for both.

In the event Eisenkot, Gantz and Bennett run separately, the poll predicts 25 seats for Likud, 18 for Bennett’s party, 10 each for Yisrael Beytenu and Shas, 9 for the Democrats, 8 each for Yesh Atid and United Torah Judaism, 7 for Eisenkot’s Yashar, 6 each for Otzma Yehudit and Ra’am, 5 for Hadash-Ta’al, and 4 each for Blue and White and Religious Zionism.

The pro-Netanyahu bloc gets 53 seats, the anti-Netanyahu Zionist bloc gets 52 seats, while the Arab parties get 11, and the non-aligned Blue and White stands at 4.

And if the merger materializes, it predicts 36 seats for the merged party, 25 for Likud, 9 each for Yisrael Beytenu and Shas, 8 each for the Democrats and United Torah Judaism, 6 each for Otzma Yehudit and Ra’am, 5 for Hadash-Ta’al, and 4 each for Blue and White and Religious Zionism.

The pro-Netanyahu bloc gets 52 seats, the anti-Netanyahu Zionist bloc gets 53 seats, and the Arab parties stay at 11, while Blue and White is at 4.

The survey was conducted on January 21-22, by Tatika Research and Media in collaboration with the Adgenda panel, and included 500 Jewish and Arab respondents, controlled for age, religion, gender and place of residence. The margin of error is 4.4%.