Poll Shows Yamina Still Has a Chance

By Hamodia Staff

YERUSHALAYIM — A poll released on Thursday night showed no significant change in the electoral outlook in Israel, except on the fringes.

The fringe parties of Ayelet Shaked’s Yamina and Yoaz Hendel’s Derech Eretz would clear the electoral threshold if voting were today, according to the Channel 12-sponsored findings.

The merger of the two parties — to be known henceforth as Zionist Spirit — on Wednesday apparently provided the required propellant to get over the 3.2% minimum of the overall national electorate to be seated in the Knesset.

Shaked assumed the leadership of Yamina after Naftali Bennett resigned as prime minister and as head of the party. He is staying on as alternate prime minister until a new government is formed after the November 1 election.

But the overall configuration remained about the same as before, with neither Binyamin Netanyahu’s right-religious bloc nor Yair Lapid’s center-left bloc winning enough votes to establish a government, thus failing to dispel the specter of another inconclusive election. The lineup would yield 57 for the former, 53 for the latter.

That indicates slippage for Netanyahu, whose bloc had been polling at 60-61 in recent weeks.

The poll shows Likud receiving 33 seats, Yesh Atid 23, Blue and White-New Hope 11, Religious Zionism 9, Shas 8, United Torah Judaism 7, Joint List 6, Meretz 5, Labor 5, Yisrael Beytenu 5, Zionist Spirit 4 and Ra’am 4.

It also said that if Religious Zionism were to split, and Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to run separately, they will receive 7 and 4 seats, respectively, a combined 11, which would be an 2 more seats than they have together. The numbers appear to reflect the popularity of Ben Gvir, an far-right disciple of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane.

The poll was conducted by Mano Geva and iPanel today with 503 respondents and a margin of error of 4.4%.