Poll finds giving up rotation with Lapid would help Blue and White
IDI finds majority of public don’t trust polls
By GIL HOFFMANYair Lapid, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Benny Gantz(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST+EMIL SALMAN/POLL+ANDREAS GEBERT/REUTERS)
A poll taken on Monday and Tuesday for Channel 13 found that if elections were to be held now, Likud would beat Blue and White, 29 seats to 28. It was the first time Likud had passed Blue and White in polls, taken by respected pollster Camil Fuchs, since Blue and White was founded two months ago.Twenty-four percent of respondents in the poll said that if Blue and White leader Benny Gantz reneged on his commitment to rotate as prime minister with his number two, Yair Lapid, they would be more likely to vote for the party. Only 6% said they would be less likely to vote for the party without Lapid as a co-candidate for prime minister, 56% said it would make no difference and 14% did not know.“If we want to guarantee victory in the election, Lapid must give up on the rotation,” a very high-ranking candidate on the Blue and White list told KAN. “It would bring us two or three more seats. Other top candidates in the party agree, but Lapid isn’t willing to give it up.”Asked whether they believe Gantz would join a Netanyahu-led government, 54% said yes, 22% no and 22% did not know. When asked who is most fit to be prime minister, 46% said Netanyahu and 37% Gantz.The poll of 856 respondents representing a statistical sample of the Israeli adult population had a margin of error of 3.4%. Labor would win 14 seats in the poll, the highest predicted for the party since the election was initiated. Yisrael Beytenu would not cross the electoral threshold.Also, more than half the respondents in a survey – taken 10 days ago by the Gutman Center of the Israel Democracy Institute – do not trust polls.More results of the poll will be revealed Wednesday at a special conference in Hebrew sponsored by The Jerusalem Post Group, the parent company of Maariv and The Jerusalem Post. A panel of Maariv journalists will ask questions to candidates at the event in Tel Aviv, which will be hosted by Yaakov Katz, the Post’s editor-in-chief.In the IDI poll, 42.5% of the Israelis said they favored a government headed by Netanyahu, while 40.5% favored a government headed by Gantz. Analysis by age revealed that the preference for Gantz is greater among those aged 45 and over, while preference for Netanyahu is more prominent among younger voters.Two-thirds of Jewish respondents said they think that Israel is too lenient in dealing with the clashes on the Gaza border. Only 4% of Jews claim that Israel’s response is too harsh. Nineteen percent of Jewish respondents said they think that Israel’s response to events on the border of the fence is appropriate.Fifty-two percent of respondents said they did not believe Netanyahu’s statement that he “didn’t get a shekel from the submarine deal” and 38.5% said they did believe the prime minister. According to political affiliation among the Jewish public, 92% of the Leftist camp, 91% of the Center and 27% of the Right do not believe Netanyahu’s statement.
The survey included 603 respondents, who constitute a representative national sample of Israel’s adult population aged 18 and over. The maximum measurement error for the entire sample is ±4.1%, at a confidence level of 95%.
