Israel Elections: Political draw looms - poll

The poll finds the pro-Netanyahu and anti-Netanyahu blocs evenly matched with 60 seats after the religious Zionist parties united, as many center-left parties fail to clear the electoral threshold.

A large ad for Otzma Yehudit with the caption "Only [Party leader] Itamar Ben Gvir will save Bibi." Bibi is how many Israelis refer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu   (photo credit: AVRAHAM SASSONI)
A large ad for Otzma Yehudit with the caption "Only [Party leader] Itamar Ben Gvir will save Bibi." Bibi is how many Israelis refer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
(photo credit: AVRAHAM SASSONI)
A "political draw" looks likely after parties submitted their lists for the Knesset elections, a new poll conducted by Panels Politics predicted.
The poll, published Thursday morning on 103FM, part of the Jerusalem Post Group, states that the pro-Netanyahu bloc, which includes Naftali Bennett's Yamina and the newly-united religious Zionism list, would receive 60 seats in the coming election, exactly the same as the anti-Netanyahu bloc.
According to the poll, the Likud would receive 29 seats if elections were held today. Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid retains second place with 17 seats, ahead of Gideon Sa'ar's New Hope Party, which has 14.
Naftali Bennett's Yamina would receive 11 seats, one more than the Joint List, which on Wednesday officially decided to run in the elections without Mansour Abbas's conservative Ra'am Party.
Yisrael Beytenu received eight seats in the poll, the same as Shas and one more than the seven seats that United Torah Judaism received.
The Labor Party continues its impressive rise in the polls after the election of Merav Michaeli as chairman and the recent party primaries, standing at six seats. Meretz received five seats in the poll, as did the new religious Zionism list.
Benny Gantz's Blue and White, Ron Huldai's Israelis Party, Yaron Zelekha's Economic Party and Ofer Shelah's Tnufa Party all failed to clear the threshold.
 
Some of the parties have not yet submitted their lists to the Knesset and more connections are expected before then, such as a possible connection between the Bayit Yehudi Party and the religious Zionism list, and the connection or resignation of some left-center parties that fail to clear the electoral threshold otherwise, such as the aforementioned Huldai's, Shelah's and the Democratic Party.
The survey was conducted on Wednesday evening by Menachem Lazar, director of Panels Politics. It was conducted on a representative sample of the adult population in the State of Israel with 532 respondents, Jews and Arabs alike, ages 18 and over. The maximum sampling error is 4.4%.