130,000 New Immigrants Could Swing Israel's Election

Pollster Manu Geva said Thursday night on Channel 12's "Status Report" program, hosted by Yaron Avraham and Einav Galili, that the possibility of either political bloc reaching 61 mandates in the upcoming election is an extreme scenario, but pointed to a large group of voters whose behavior on election day remains unknown.

Asked about the possibility of one side reaching 61 mandates, Geva replied: "That's an extreme scenario. Really. Really an extreme scenario."

But Geva then raised another figure that could prove significant to the election results: approximately 130,000 eligible voters who made aliyah from Russia and Ukraine, primarily since 2022.

Geva said it’s hard to predict how this group will sway the election, since pollsters still know little about how they vote.

"There's another interesting population, which is the olim from Russia and Ukraine mainly, right? Who came starting from 2022. They're about 130,000 eligible voters," Geva said.

The pollster explained that the central question is not just the number of eligible voters in this group, but how many will actually show up at the polls.

"We don't know how many of them will come to vote," he noted.

Geva added that changes in overall turnout could also affect the distribution of mandates among parties, and that this is another factor difficult to assess in advance.

He emphasized that the group of olim he discussed represents an unknown in the election system, since he does not have a clear picture of their voting patterns.

"In other words, a population we don't know," Geva explained, adding that it is difficult to sample them.