ToI poll: Anti-Netanyahu bloc regains lead, Eisenkot’s Yashar comes 1st with Likud in 2nd place

The bloc of parties supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fallen back below the opposition bloc in the latest poll by The Times of Israel’s sister site, Zman Yisrael, after appearing to pull ahead in recent surveys, including the previous Zman Yisrael poll on October 1.

Netanyahu’s Likud party has also dropped after last week’s poll found it was tied for the most seats with Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition Yashar faction.

However, neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the bloc of the four Jewish-led parties opposing him is close to winning a majority in the 120-seat Knesset in the October 27 election, the poll finds.

Were the elections held today, the poll finds that the four Jewish-led parties opposed to Netanyahu would win 55 seats, six short of a majority in the 120-member Knesset, while the parties supporting Netanyahu would win 51. The 51 total includes Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party, with four seats. Winter has extensively criticized Netanyahu, but says he will still sit in a coalition headed by him.

The mainly Arab Ra’am and Joint List parties, which also oppose Netanyahu but, except for Ra’am’s presence in the 2020-2021 Naftali Bennett- and Yair Lapid-led government, have not been included in governing coalitions, would win 14 seats in total.

Sitting atop the poll is Eisenkot’s Yashar with 24 seats, followed by Likud with 20.

Next come opposition party B’Yachad with 13 seats and its ally Yisrael Beytenu with 10. The Joint List is next with a projected nine seats.

Hot on their heels are ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism and the left-wing Democrats, with eight seats apiece.

The far-right Otzma Yehudit is projected to win six seats, while Arab Ra’am and far-right Religious Zionism-Zehut would each win five.

Rounding out the list is Winter’s People of Israel with the minimum four seats required to enter the Knesset.

A non-aligned party led by Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha, and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, both fail to pass the electoral threshold.

The poll was conducted on October 7 and 8 by Yossi Tatika of Tatika Research & Media in collaboration with the Adgenda panel, and surveyed a total sample of 500 respondents with a margin of error of ±4.4%.