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Thursday, July 28, 2022
Poll shows Shaked-Hendel merger pushing them over electoral threshold
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The merger this week of Yamina’s Ayelet Shaked and New Hope MKs Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser will push the new party over the electoral threshold, a new poll from Channel 12 news finds.
Yamina has been polling below the electoral threshold in Israel’s unreliable yet influential election polls. Earlier this week, the party joined up with Hendel and renamed the faction “Zionist Spirit.”
The poll was run by Mano Geva and iPanel today with 503 respondents and a margin of error of 4.4%.
The poll shows Likud receiving 33 seats, Yesh Atid 23, Blue and White-New Hope 11, Religious Zionism 9, Shas 8, United Torah Judaism 7, Joint List 6, Meretz 5, Labor 5, Yisrael Beytenu 5, Zionist Spirit 4 and Ra’am 4.
Neither the bloc loyal to opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu nor his opponents would be able to easily form a government. Zionist Spirit has not ruled out sitting with Netanyahu, but vowed not to provide him with the final seats he needs to form a narrow right-wing coalition.
The poll also shows that if Religious Zionism splits in two, and Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich run separately, they will receive 7 and 4 seats, respectively.
The Times of Israel Community.