Poll projects tight race for Likud, Yamina

In first, Channel 13 News survey shows that if Yamina, Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beytenu band together, they could form a 61-seat coalition, establishing a government that excluded Likud and the Haredi parties.

By ILH Staff

Last modified: 10-19-2020

Yamina leader Naftali Bennett | File photo: AFP

A poll that aired on Channel 13 News on Sunday projected a tight race between Yamina and Likud, giving the later only a three-seat lead on the former.

Were elections held at this time, the survey found that Likud would win 27 Knesset seats and Naftali Bennett’s Yamina party would secure 24 mandates.

Yamina has been growing stronger in almost every poll held by mainstream media over the past two months, leading pundits to hedge that the national-religious faction comprising the New Right and National Union parties will pose a significant challenge for Likud come Election Day.

The growing tensions between national unity government partners Likud and Blue and White have had coalition partners say that another snap elections may be called in the next few months.

The survey further projected that Yesh Atid would win 21 seats, followed by the Joint Arab List (11), Blue and White (8), Yisrael Beytenu (8), ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party Shas (8), Ashkenazi Haredi party United Torah Judaism (7), and Meretz, with six seats.

As previous polls have shown, the Labor, Gesher, Habayit Hayehudi, Derech Eretz, and the far-Right Otzma Yehudit parties are not expected to past the prerequisite four-Knesset-seat electoral threshold.

Sans Yisrael Beytenu, which all polls say could join either side of the political map, these results give the right-wing bloc 66 seats and the center-left 46 mandates.

However, if Yamina, Yesh Atid and Yisrael Beytenu band together, they could form a 61-seat coalition, establishing a government that excluded Likud and the Haredi parties.

Channel 13 News found that 36% of Israelis would prefer Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remain in office. Some 25% said they believe Bennett most was qualified for the role of the premier, 19% named Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, and 15% opted for Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.

Nearly half of the Israeli public – 48% – believe the national unity government has failed and it would be better of early elections were called. Some 36$ believe the current government should live out it days.

A corresponding poll that aired on Channel 12 News gave Likud 27 seats, followed by Yamina (22), Yesh Atid (21), the Joint Arab List (15), Blue and White (10), Shas (9), UTJ (7), Yisrael Beytenu (7), and Meretz (6).

Here, too, Labor, Gesher, Habayit Hayehudi, Derech Eretz, and Otzma Yehudit were excluded from parliament.

The results found that 63% of Israelis think political considerations dictate the government’s decisions with regards to Israel’s coronavirus lockdown exit strategy.

Some 59% of Israelis said they believed the current exit strategy would fail and a third lockdown will be called, compared to 21% who said it would work.