Poll Shows Coalition Strengthening, Likud Weakening as Smotrich’s Party Crosses Threshold
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud continued to weaken in a new Maariv poll published Thursday, but the coalition bloc gained ground after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party crossed the electoral threshold for the first time in nearly six months.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud continued to weaken in a new Maariv poll published Thursday, but the coalition bloc gained ground after Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party crossed the electoral threshold for the first time in nearly six months.
The poll was conducted shortly before the coalition-backed bill to dissolve the Knesset passed its preliminary reading. It found the coalition bloc rising by two seats to 51, while the Zionist opposition bloc fell from 61 seats to 59. Arab parties remained unchanged at 10 seats.
Likud continued its downward trend, and Shas also lost one seat. But those losses were offset by Religious Zionism’s return above the threshold, strengthening the overall coalition picture. Politics, apparently, remains committed to making arithmetic emotionally exhausting.
On the opposition side, both Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid’s Together party and Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar weakened by one seat each. The Reservists Party, at 1.4%, Blue and White, at 1.5%, and Balad, also at 1.5%, all remained below the electoral threshold.
Maariv also tested three possible scenarios in which Together, Yashar and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu run as one joint list. Each scenario placed a different leader at the head of the slate.
The strongest result came with Eisenkot leading the alliance. In that scenario, the combined list won 49 seats, the same total the three parties received when running separately. The broader bloc map remained unchanged: 51 seats for the coalition, 59 for the opposition and 10 for the Arab parties.
The poll also found broad opposition to the government’s draft bill. Forty-nine percent of Israelis said they oppose the legislation, compared with 30% who support it. Another 21% said they did not know.
The survey was conducted by Lazar Research, led by Dr. Menachem Lazar, in cooperation with Panel4All, on May 19-20 among 500 Israeli adults, including Jews and Arabs. The margin of error was 4.4%.