A new mandate poll from the HaMedad Institute, published Tuesday night on Channel 13 News, shows Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party running dead even with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, with both parties projected to win 21 seats. Likud fell one seat from HaMedad's previous survey, while Yashar held steady, leaving the two tied for the lead with the election roughly ninety eight days away.
The poll's most striking finding is the continued fall of Naftali Bennett's Yachad party, which dropped to a new low of just 14 seats. Yair Golan's Democrats party continued climbing to 11 seats, Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu held at 10, and Itamar Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit stood at 7.
Haredi Parties Hold Steady
Among the Haredi parties, Shas under Aryeh Deri and United Torah Judaism under Yitzchak Goldknopf each polled at 8 seats. Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party came in at 5. On the Arab side of the map, Hadash-Ta'al polled at 6 seats and Ra'am under Mansour Abbas at 5. The poll also found the joint Tropper-Hendel list crossing the electoral threshold with 4 seats, while Balad and Blue and White both fell short of the threshold entirely.
A Clear Bloc Advantage, But No Majority
Looking at the broader bloc map, the anti-Netanyahu camp, including the Arab factions, reached 71 seats against just 49 for the Netanyahu bloc. That gap is significant, but it comes with an important caveat: even with that advantage, the Zionist opposition parties alone do not reach the 61 seat majority needed to form a government without relying on the Arab factions, a dynamic that has repeatedly complicated opposition efforts to translate polling leads into an actual coalition.
Eisenkot Widens His Lead On Personal Ratings
The poll also asked Israelis directly who they see as most fit to serve as prime minister, and the gap there was more pronounced than the mandate count suggests. Eisenkot widened his lead over Netanyahu, with 47 percent of respondents naming him the more suitable candidate against 35 percent for Netanyahu, a 12 point gap. In a head to head matchup against Bennett, however, Bennett led Netanyahu 43 percent to 40 percent, suggesting Netanyahu's standing varies significantly depending on who he is measured against.
Caveats Worth Noting
As with any single poll, the usual caveats apply. Israeli pollsters have been wrong before at decisive moments, and a competing analysis published the same day by a senior pollster reached a notably different conclusion, projecting the right wing bloc crossing 61 seats with room to grow toward 70. The gap between these two readings is a reminder that with the vote still roughly three months away, the mandate math remains fluid and highly sensitive to turnout, alliance decisions, and last minute shifts among undecided voters.
