ToI poll: Eisenkot opens up big lead on Netanyahu, but both blocs short of majority

Opposition frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party has opened up a significant lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, but neither camp is projected to win a majority in the Knesset, according to a new poll by The Times of Israel’s sister site, Zman Yisrael, published on Thursday

The poll also notably showed Ofer Winter’s right-wing People of Israel party falling short of entering the Knesset. The prime minister’s Likud and its allies have been mounting an aggressive campaign to pressure People of Israel and other small parties to withdraw from the election, fearing they could siphon off support from established parties and cost the Netanyahu-led bloc crucial seats if they fail to cross the electoral threshold.

Polls have predicted a deadlock in the October 27 election between the presumed pro- and anti-Netanyahu camps for months. Thursday’s poll shows the bloc of Jewish-led parties opposing the premier with 54 seats, compared to 49 for the pro-Netanyahu bloc, both short of a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

Arab parties would win 13, while the Reservists, a nonaligned party, would sneak in with four. Last week the anti-Netanyahu bloc was projected to win 55 seats, while the pro-Netanyahu camp had 51.

The biggest change in Thursday’s poll was that it showed Yashar winning 26 seats compared to 20 for Likud. Last week, the gap was 24 to 20.

Coming in third in the poll was former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s opposition B’Yachad party with 11, followed by the hawkish opposition Yisrael Beytenu with nine.

Next are four parties with eight seats each: Shas and United Torah Judaism, both of which support Netanyahu; the left-wing Democrats; and the Arab-led Joint List.

Then come two far-right, pro-Netanyahu parties: Otzma Yehudit with seven and Religious Zionism with six.

The Arab-led, historically Islamist Ra’am would win five, followed by the Reservists with four.

Two parties would fall short of the 3.25% of votes needed to enter the Knesset: People of Israel, with 2.8%, and the centrist Blue and White, with 1.2%.

People of Israel has hovered around the threshold in recent weeks, meaning that it is uncertain whether it will receive enough votes to enter the Knesset, while no recent poll has shown Blue and White coming close to winning seats.

The poll was conducted on October 14 and 15 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%.

The survey was published a day after a Channel 13 poll that also showed a dip in support for Netanyahu’s bloc — by four seats — as the Reservists were also forecast to squeeze past the minimum vote threshold. However, the network poll gave the Netanyahu bloc one more seat than the opposition bloc led by Eisenkot.

Together, Netanyahu’s Likud and its allies had 51 seats in the survey, versus 50 for Eisenkot’s bloc. The Joint List, Ra’am and the Reservists picked up the remaining 19 seats.

Eisenkot’s Yashar party was the largest in that poll with 20 seats, followed by Likud at 18, B’Yachad 12, Yisrael Beytenu had 9, Democrats 9, Joint List 9, Otzma Yehudit 8, United Torah Judaism 8, Shas 7, Religious Zionism 6, Ra’am 6, People of Israel 4 and the Reservists 4.

The survey, which was conducted by Madad pollsters Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepkov, included 1,018 respondents, with a 3.1% margin of error.

While horse-race polls are an almost daily occurrence in Israel in the months leading up to elections and are not seen as overly reliable, taken together, the surveys can often serve as a general gauge of the political climate and where the vote may be headed.