Will the March 23 Knesset election be just a stop on the way to a 5th election? A Channel 13 poll published Thursday showed no change in the balance between the right and left-wing blocs, and indicated that if the election were held right now, neither side would be able to form a government.
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The poll showed the Likud dropping one seat to 27. Yesh Atid under Yair Lapid was projected to win 18 seats. The party projected to win the third-largest number of seats was New Hope, under former Likud minister Gideon Sa'ar (13).
Naftali Bennett's Yamina party was projected to win 11 seats, followed by the Joint Arab List (without Ra'am), with a projected eight seats. MK Mansour Abbas' Ra'am party, running independently, was projected to make it past the minimum electoral threshold of 3.25% and win four seats.
The ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism were projected to win seven seats apiece, and the secular Yisrael Beytenu and Labor parties were each projected to win six seats, the poll showed.
The poll predicted five seats for Meretz, and four seats for Defense Minister Benny Gantz's Blue and White party – putting it barely above the minimum threshold.
The same number of seats, four, were also projected for the far-right Religious Zionist party.
According to the poll, the bloc of parties seeking to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would secure 60 seats, and the pro-Netanyahu bloc would win 45 seats. Yamina with its projected 11 seats, was not included in either bloc.
When asked who was best qualified to serve as prime minister, 37% of respondents picked Netanyahu. Another 21% picked Lapid, 14% picked Sa'ar, and only 9% said Bennett was the most qualified candidate to serve as prime minister.
When asked which candidate other than Netanyahu they would like to see as prime minister, most (25%) said Lapid, followed by Bennett (20%), and then Sa'ar (18%). Over one-fourth (27%) said "none of the above."
Most respondents said they thought that Bennett would join the Netanyahu bloc after the election – 59% said they expected he would, and 19% said they did not expect Bennett to join a Netanyahu government.
The Channel 13 poll was conducted in conjunction with Professor Camil Fuchs on Thursday, Feb. 25. It polled a representative sample of 603 Jewish and 184 Arab residents of Israel. It had a margin of error of 3.5%.
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