The addition of former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot gives the National Unity Party two more mandates and bumps up its total to 12 seats, according to a new poll conducted by Menachem Lazar, head of Panel Politics.
Following the split between Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich and MK Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the party’s Otzma Yehudit faction, Otzma Yehudit would receive seven seats, and the Religious Zionist Party would get five, the poll found.
Meretz passes the electoral threshold and wins four seats, while Zionist Spirit, led by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, falls beneath the threshold and wins none, according to the poll.
This is the opposite of Lazar’s previous poll last Friday, in which Zionist Spirit passed and Meretz did not.
Full poll results ahead of Israel's elections
The full results were opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud 32, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid 25, National Unity 12, Shas eight, Otzma Yehudit seven, United Torah Judaism seven, Joint List six, Religious Zionism, Labor and Yisrael Beytenu five each and Meretz and Ra’am (United Arab List) four each. Zionist Spirit received 2.6% of the vote, well under the threshold of 3.25%.
The Netanyahu bloc thus has 59 seats, the Lapid bloc has 55 seats, and the remaining six seats belong to the Joint List.
Zionist Spirit’s decline indicated that some of its expected voters switched to National Unity after Eisenkot joined it.
The Likud and Shas both lost one seat each, compared with last week’s poll, as Otzma Yehudit took a mandate away from each, the poll found.
Labor also lost two mandates after receiving seven last week while riding the momentum of its primary election. Some moved to Meretz and some to Yesh Atid, the poll found.
The poll surveyed 737 voters and had a margin of error of 4.2%.