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Thursday, August 20, 2026
ToI poll shows Bennett gaining ground at Eisenkot’s expense, but deadlock persists
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A new opinion poll ahead of the October 27 election by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site, shows a bump in support for Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad party at the expense of Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar, but features no change in the deadlock between the pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu blocs.
Yashar remains the biggest party but loses two seats to get 23 seats, while the ruling Likud stays at 21, and B’Yachad gets 15, gaining two seats after consistently losing ground over the past few months, though it is too early to say if this is a consistent trend.
Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu gets 11 seats, Shas gets 9, United Torah Judaism and The Democrats 8 each, Hadash-Ta’al-Balad and Otzma Yehudit 7 each, Religious Zionism 6, and Ra’am 5.
Yoaz Hendel’s centrist Zionist Home falls below the 3.25% electoral threshold with 3.00%, Benny Gantz’s fellow centrist Blue and White gets 2.40%, and Gilad Erdan’s new right-wing party gets just 0.80%. All three are parties not aligned with either bloc.
The pro-Netanyahu bloc stays at 51 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while the Zionist anti-Netanyahu parties get 57, both short of a majority. The Islamist Ra’am and the mostly Arab Hadash-Ta’al-Balad are not included in either bloc, but the anti-Netanyahu bloc may end up teaming up with Ra’am.
The poll included 500 respondents and was conducted on August 19-20, with a 4.4% margin of error.
The Times of Israel Community.