Poll: Likud Weakens, But Rightwing Bloc Strengthens Thanks to Otzma

A new poll by Kan News shows that the deadlock between right and center-left in Israeli politics continues. According to the poll, Blue and White pulled ahead of the Likud, and if elections were held today the party would get 32 seats, coming in ahead of the Likud by one seat.

With that, the rightwing bloc remains stable, or even grows a bit, reaching 58 seats. That is due to the 4 seats Otzma Yehudit would get if elections were held today. Along with those 4, Binyamin Netanyahu can count in his coalition 9 seats belonging to Yemina, and 7 each for United Torah Judaism and Shas. On the other side of the aisle, Blue and White’s Benny Gantz could count on 6 MKs that the Democratic Front would yield, and 5 from Labor. That gives Gantz 43 seats in a coalition with his “natural” partners.

The wild card in the election remains Yisrael Beytenu, which according to the poll would get 9 seats. Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman has not ruled out entering a coalition with Gantz, but even with his 9 seats, Gantz would only be able to cobble together a coalition of 52 MKs. To put him over the top, he would need the 10 seats the poll shows the United Arab List would get – or tempt one of the Likud’s partners into his government.

Most analysts do not believe that bringing the UAL into a government whose main party includes four former IDF Chiefs of Staff is a realistic possibility, and given the anti-chareidi and anti-religious rhetoric by Liberman in recent days, it’s highly unlikely that any of the Likud’s coalition partners would jump to Gantz’s side.

A report in Yisrael Hayom Tuesday said that internal Likud polls shows that the strengthening of Otzma is not a technical polling error, but a solid trend. This is the third poll in a row that shows Itamar Ben-Gvir’s party passing the electoral threshold.