The political stalemate gripping Israel since the 2019 April election remained largely unfazed by the major events of the past few weeks, and the March 2 election may not prove to be a tiebreaker, a poll commissioned by Israel Hayom and i24NEWS showed Thursday.
Israel called the unprecedented third round of elections in the span of one year after the races in April and September failed to produce a clear winner and neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor challenger Blue and White leader Benny Gantz were able to cobble together a government.
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The survey, conducted by the Maagar Mochot polling institute, found that if elections were held at this time, Blue and White would win 36 Knesset seats, giving it a narrow lead over the Likud's 34 mandates.
The Joint Arab List would retain its position as the third-largest party with 13 seats, followed by the Labor-Gesher-Meretz alliance (8), Yamina, which comprises the New Right, National Union, and Habayit Hayehudi parties (8), Shas (8), United Torah Judaism (7), and Yisrael Beytenu, with six parliament seats.
The far-right Otzma Yehudit party failed to secure the prerequisite four-Knesset-seat electoral threshold of 3.25% of the votes.
These results give the right-wing bloc 57 confirmed mandates, and the center-left bloc 44. It is unclear who Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman will endorse, nor is it clear whether the Joint Arab List will throw its weight behind Gantz, as it did after the September 17 elections.
Of both Yisrael Beytenu and the Joint Arab List endorse Blue and White's leader, he will have 63 mandates – up two seats from the 61-MK majority necessary to form a government.
Should Lieberman endorse Netanyahu, the prime minister, too, would secure 63 seats and would be able to form a right-wing coalition.
Asked what were the chances they will vote in the third elections, 56% of respondents said they "definitely" plan to vote, 28% said they were "very likely" to vote, 6% said they were "likely" to vote, and 10% said they were "unlikely" to cast their ballot on March 2.
But have the recent political and diplomatic development – Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit's decision to indict Netanyahu on corruption charges, the rollout of the Trump administration's "deal of the century," potential normalization of ties with Sudan, and the recent security escalation, to name a few – affected potential voters? According to the data – not by much.
Some 55% of respondents said they plan on again voting for the same party, 27% said they were "very likely" to cast the same ballot, 11% said they were "somewhat likely" to vote similarly, and 7% said they were "unlikely" to vote for the same party again.
Netanyahu remains the favorite for the position of the prime minister, with 47% of respondents saying he was best suited for the roll. Thirty-nine percent of those polled said they believed Gantz would make a better prime minister.
As for the public's support for US President Donald Trump' Middle East peace plan, 35% of respondents said Israel should accept the deal in full, 31% said Israel should reject it, and the reminder 34% said they either did not know or had no opinion on the matter.
On the questions of whether Israel should apply sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and the large settlement blocks in Judea and Samaria, and if so, whether it should be done before or after the March vote, 32% supported annexation prior to the elections, 23% supported annexation but only after the vote is decided, 20% said they do not support the move regardless of when it might take place, and 25% said they either did not know or had no opinion on the matter.
As for the possibility that the center-left bloc and Yisrael Beytenu would form a minority government with the outside support of the Joint Arab List, 54% of those polled said they would oppose such a coalition, 29% said they would support it, and 17% said they either did not know or had no opinion on the matter.
Some 30% of respondent further said they prefer a right-wing government led by Likud, 23% favored the center-left-led minority government with the outside support of the Joint Arab List, 17% said a narrow national unity government of Likud and Blue and White would be best for Israel, 17% supported a large unity government comprising Likud, Blue and White, and the right-wing bloc, and 13% said they had no opinion on the matter.
The poll was conducted by the Maagar Mochot polling institute among 506 respondents comprising a representative sample of Israelis 18 and over. The statistical margin of error is 4.4 percentage points.
