Poll shows Winter’s new party has potential to enter Knesset, sink Smotrich’s party

A new opinion poll by the Kan public broadcaster shows that ex-IDF general Ofer Winter’s fledgling right-wing party, set to be formally launched this week, has the potential to pass the electoral threshold, if several other candidates who are widely reported to be set to join him end up doing so.

Winter’s party gets 2.5% of the vote, failing to pass the 3.25% threshold, in the main survey, whose results are: 24 seats for Gadi Einsekot’s Yashar, 22 for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, 14 for Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad, 10 for The Democrats, 9 each for Otzma Yehudit and Yisrael Beytenu, 8 for United Torah Judaism, 7 each for Shas and Hadash-Ta’al-Balad, and 5 each for Ra’am and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism.

The pro-Netanyahu bloc gets 51 seats in the 120-member Knesset, the Zionist anti-Netanyahu bloc gets 57, and the predominantly Arab parties get 12, meaning a longstanding deadlock persists unless the anti-Netanyahu bloc teams up with Ra’am.

But Winter’s party manages to enter the Knesset in a scenario in which his party recruits Arab-Israeli right-wing activist Yoseph Haddad, bereaved mother Laly Derai, and journalist Netali Shem Tov. All three are reportedly on the cusp of formally joining the party.

In that scenario, Winter’s party gets 5 seats and Smotrich’s Religious Zionism falls to 3.0%, failing to enter the parliament. In addition, the scenario puts Otzma Yehudit one seat down, to 8, and hands it to Yisrael Beytenu (10), putting the pro-Netanyahu bloc down to 45, or 50 if Winter teams up with it.