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Thursday, August 27, 2026
ToI poll: Ofer Winter’s party gets 6 seats, pushing Religious Zionism out of Knesset
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A poll released today by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister publication, shows the new People of Israel party headed by Ofer Winter receiving 6 seats, but seemingly pushing Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party below the electoral threshold.
The two parties are targeting a similar electorate: religious, right-wing, pro-settlement voters, though Smotrich has a declared alliance with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Zman poll also shows that Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party would be the largest with 26 seats, followed by Likud with 22, Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad with 14 and Yisrael Beytenu with 10.
The Shas party would get 9 seats, United Torah Judaism 8, The Democrats 8, The Hadash-Ta’al-Balad joint slate 6, Otzma Yehudit 6 and Ra’am 5.
In addition to Religious Zionism, Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party, Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper’s Zionist Home and Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein’s Unity party are all predicted to fall below the electoral threshold.
Therefore, the anti-Netanyahu Zionist parties (in the so-called “change bloc” would receive 58 seats. The pro-Netanyahu bloc — including the People of Israel party of Winter, who said Thursday afternoon that he would only back Netanyahu as prime minister — would get 51 seats. The Joint List of Arab parties and Ra’am would hold the remaining 11 seats.
The poll surveyed 500 Israelis with a margin of error of ±4.4%.
The Times of Israel Community.