The Blue and White party co-chaired by Benny Gantz and the Zehut party led by Moshe Feiglin topped the 2019 election sample poll conducted on behalf of the National Union of Israeli Students. A sampling of over 3,000 students at colleges and universities throughout Israel was conducted by the Panels political polling agency.
The results for the 120-member Knesset were as follows:
Blue and White headed by Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid - 47
Zehut headed by Moshe Feiglin - 17
Meretz headed by Tamar Zandberg - 15
Labor headed by Avi Gabbay - 14
Likud headed by Benjamin Netanyahu - 13
Union of Right-Wing Parties headed by Rafi Peretz - 7
New Right headed by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked - 7
In addition, students identified socioeconomic issues as one of the most important issue facing them in the elections.
In answer to the question "As a student in Israel, what is the most important issue for you in the upcoming elections?" the results were as follows:
Socioeconomic issues / cost of living - 49%
Political-security issue - 21%
The state of Israeli democracy - 14%
Religion and state - 12%
Other - 4%
Shlomi Yehiav, chairman of the National Union of Israeli Students stated, "Israeli students point out time and time again that the urgent issue for them is the economic situation and the cost of living in the country."Yehiav, who was elected in February, is a graduate student in law and public policy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He urged that regardless of who will be elected on April 9th, the new government should "invest the maximum resources in order to create a better future for us."
Among the parties that found themselves below the threshold in the mock elections were:
United Torah Judaism headed by Yaakov Litzman - 2.8%
Hadash-Ta'al headed by Ayman Odeh and Ahmad Tibi - 2.0%
Shas headed by Aryeh Deri - 1.9%
Gesher headed by Orly Levy-Abekasis - 1.1%
5% were undecided.
The threshold for the 2019 elections is 3.25%
In the previous elections of 2015, the Zionist Union headed by Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog won in the student union poll which had a sampling 15,000 students. Likud who led the elections won only fifth place in the student poll. The results of the 2015 student poll are as follows:
Zionist Union - 47
Meretz - 19
Bayit Yehudi - 17
Yesh Atid headed by Yair Lapid - 15
Likud - 10
Arab List - 7
Kulanu - 6
Alei Yarok (Green Leaf) - 5
Parties that did not pass the threshold in the 2015 student elections but did enter the Knesset in the real elections included: Yisrael Beiteinu headed by Avigdor Liberman, UTJ and Shas.
The National Union of Israeli Students was founded in 1934 and represents more than 300,000 students in over 64 universities and colleges throughout the Jewish state.