The political instability over the coronavirus crisis will be reflected in the polls, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's approval ratings have been rattled, a survey by Channel 13 News found Monday.
The data, compiled by Professor Camil Fuchs, one of the country's leading pollsters, found that 65% of the public was unhappy with how the prime minister is handling the pandemic.
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The poll projected that were elections held at this time, Likud would win 31 Knesset seats, and Yamina, under Naftali Bennett, would secure 21 mandates.
Yesh Atid would win 18 seats, followed by the Joint Arab List (13), Blue and White (11), Yisrael Beytenu, (6) Meretz (6), and ultra-Orthodox Sephardi party Shas and Ashkenazi counterpart United Torah Judaism with seven mandates each.
For the first time since its inception in the 1960s, Labor was not expected to past the prerequisite four-Knesset-seat electoral threshold.
Also falling below the electoral threshold are Gesher, Habayit Hayehudi, Derech Eretz, and the far-Right Otzma Yehudit parties.
The poll thus projected that the right-wing bloc would win 66 Knesset seats and the center-left bloc 48. Yisrael Beytenu was marked as "undecided" between the two blocs.
Asked who they believe is best suited for the role of prime minister, 32% of respondents named Netanyahu, 18% chose Bennett, 13% named Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, and only 10% chose Blue and White leader Benny Gantz who, as Netanyahu's partner in the national unity government formed in April, is currently the prime minister-designate.
Another 27% of respondents named other lawmakers or said they had no opinion on the matter.
As for how Netanyahu has been handling the question of whether to impose partial lockdown on communities hit particularly hard by the coronavirus, 68% said his decision to back away from lockdowns was a capitulation to the Haredi parties.
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Twenty percent of those polled said they believe Netanyahu was making prudent decisions, and 12% said they had no opinion on the matter.
As for the public's approval of how Netanyahu has been dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak overall, 65% of respondents said they "disapprove" of his policies, 21% said they "somewhat approved" of them, 9% said they "approve" of government policies, and 5% said they had no opinion on the matter.
The poll included 707 respondents comprising a representative sample of Israelis 18 and over.
