As Israel's political system braces for election day and tension between the blocs reaches its peak, Prof. Moshe Cohen-Eliya is presenting an analysis that cuts against the media narrative: the right is heading for victory, and the ground reality is nothing like what the press is painting.
"Trump's unequivocal support for Netanyahu shows that the signs are multiplying that the right-wing bloc will win," he states at the outset. According to him, deeper polling proves the pessimistic forecasts for the bloc are off the mark: "It turns out that defection from Likud is much smaller than people think, and on top of that there are new young voters leaning right and quite a few who have sobered up and moved right after October 7th."
Turning to the prime minister's campaign strategy in the final stretch, he breaks down the moves on the ground: "Netanyahu is working full force to close every possible gap. These days we're witnessing a massive push from him, as is his habit at the end of every campaign, he's running from studio to studio. His goal is to bring back Likud supporters who wanted to vote for Ben Gvir, so that Ben Gvir doesn't cross eight mandates. It also seems clear that Levintar won't pass the threshold, and since the overwhelming majority of his supporters are right-wing people, they'll transfer their vote to the right-wing bloc."
Heexplains that this phenomenon rests on "the psychological effect" familiar in political science, where voters tend to abandon parties whose chances of winning representation are low out of fear of wasting votes, and transfer their support to more established parties.
