The Likud and Blue and White are set to lose support while Yisrael Beytenu's Avigdor Lieberman remains poised to play the role of kingmaker, according to a new Channel 12 News poll.
The poll, carried out by the Midgam research institute, found the New Right party under former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked's leadership would receive six Knesset seats.
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The Likud was set to receive 30 seats, compared to Blue and White's 29. The Joint Arab List was set to garner 11 seats, while Yisrael Beytenu was set to receive nine. Among the haredi parties, United Torah Judaism was predicted to earn eight seats, and Shas, seven. The United Right, according to the poll, was set to garner five seats. Meretz, along with embattled former Prime Minister Ehud Barak's Israel Democratic Party, were set to earn four each.
The right-wing bloc is set to receive a total of 41 Knesset seats, with the haredi parties receiving 15, according to the Channel 12 poll, so that the entire bloc was set to garner 56. This is of course without taking into account the 11 Knesset seats Yisrael Beytenu is predicted to earn according to the poll. The center-left bloc, however, was set to receive 44 seats. Should the Joint Arab List join forces with the center-left, this would result in a total of 55 seats.
The poll also examined the possibility of a right-wing alliance.
If the election was held today and the United Right were to run together with the New Right under Shaked and Otzma Yehudit, the alliance would receive a total of 13 Knesset seats, two more than the total number of seats the parties are predicted to receive if they run independently, which would come at the expense of the Likud and Blue and White.
As for which party leader respondents thought was best suited for the role of prime minister, 39% said Benjamin Netanyahu, while 29% opted for Blue and White's Benny Gantz in the Channel 12 News poll.
But a poll carried out by the Kan public broadcaster gave both the Likud and Blue and White receive 30 Knesset seats, respectively. According to this poll, the Israel Democratic Party was not expected to meet the electoral threshold.
According to the Kan poll, the Joint Arab List and Yisrael Beytenu were each set to garner 10 seats, while the recently forged alliance between Labor and Gesher would receive eight. The New Right was also predicted to earn eight seats, according to the Kan poll.
When the parties are divided along right- and left-wing blocs, the Kan poll also found that Lieberman was poised to serve as the deciding factor in the election. Without taking Yisrael Beytenu into account, the Right was set to get 57 seats, as opposed to 53 for the left-wing-Arab bloc, according to the poll.
The Kan poll also examined the possibility of alliances being formed between the IDP and Meretz, and between the New Right and the United Right.
Under these circumstances, Blue and White is expected to become the largest party with 29 Knesset seats, followed by the Likud with 28. An alliance of the political parties to the right of Likud would earn 12 seats, while a Meretz-IDP alliance would earn a total of nine seats. United Torah Judaism was expected to garner eight seats, while the Labor-Gesher union would drop to seven. Shas was also predicted to earn seven seats, according to the poll.
