Pollster Lazar: One bloc nearing Knesset majority

With only two weeks remaining until election day, Dr. Menachem Lazar, pollster for Maariv and head of Lazar Research, appeared Thursday morning on the "Sheva Tesha" program on Radio 103FM with hosts Anat Davidov and Nissim Mishal, presenting his analysis of the latest mandate surveys and the factors that could tip the balance.

"Things will be decided at the last moment, apparently because of two small parties that are hovering above and below the electoral threshold, Winter's party and Hendel and Zelekha's," Lazar said at the outset. "We cannot know what will really happen. If Winter doesn't cross, then the blocs tilt more toward the opposition. If Hendel and Zelekha don't cross, then the picture tilts more toward the coalition bloc, and then perhaps we'll reach a situation where we're stuck and no one will succeed in forming a government and we go to new elections. No one can say it's certain."

"The public is locked in: the key is turnout"

Lazar addressed the remaining share of undecided voters and noted that the battle is not over movement between the camps: "There are undecided voters remaining in the area of 5%-6%, and that may sound like a little or a lot, but in the State of Israel every mandate can be decisive. However, the undecided are not between the blocs but usually between one party and another in the same bloc. There are almost no crossovers between the blocs, the public is already locked in. Whoever is for Netanyahu is for Netanyahu in one way or another, and whoever is against is against. If the campaigns have an influence, it is mainly on the willingness to go out and vote."

On the possibility of movement and a decision in the mandate map, the senior pollster added: "Right now a tie seems quite distant, unless there are politicians who will eat their hats, and there have already been such cases. If you add Hendel and Zelekha to the change bloc, then it reaches 58 mandates and that's really on the threshold. Exceptional turnout on this side could tip the scales. We've already seen everything."