Both the Likud Party and Gantz's Blue and White Party could get an equal amount of seats – 32 each – a poll on Channel 13 published on Friday night predicted.The results show us that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bloc has 58 seats, while the Left-Center bloc receives 53 seats – with Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu Party being the deciding factor with nine seats. The poll also showed that among those asked, 46% believe that Netanyahu is the best candidate for prime minister, while 31% believe Gantz to be the better candidate. Some 14% believe neither of them are a good fit for the role. A Smith Research poll, however, found on Thursday that Netanyahu's Likud will be the largest in Tuesday’s election – by one seat.
The poll of 650 respondents – representing a statistical sample of the Israeli population – predicted 33 seats for Likud, 32 for Blue and White, 12 for the Joint List, nine for Yamina, eight for Yisrael Beytenu, eight for Shas, seven for UTJ, six for the Democratic Union and five for Labor-Gesher.
Pollster Rafi Smith said his final polls indicate that Likud and Blue and White are getting stronger at the expense of their satellite parties in their political blocs. He said he expected the Joint List to do better than polls indicate due to higher Arab turnout.
Yisrael Beytenu has been falling in the polls in recent weeks, losing support to both Likud and to Blue and White, which adopted Yisrael Beytenu's call for a secular unity government.
The Right-Center bloc won 57 seats in the poll and the Center-Left bloc 55. Liberman has hinted that he would recommend Blue and White leader Benny Gantz to form the government, which could put Gantz over the top if the Joint List also recommends him.
Netanyahu’s bloc fared better in other polls broadcast Thursday. A poll on KAN predicted 59 seats for the Right-Center bloc without Yisrael Beytenu and a Knesset Channel poll predicted 60, the same number the bloc won in the April election. That poll predicted 36 seats for Likud.
The far-Right Otzma Yehudit Party is very close to the 3.25% election threshold in the Smith poll.
Some 14% of respondents said they were undecided. Only two-thirds of the respondents said they were sure about their vote.
The poll had an error margin of 3.9%.