A new party led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett could change the distribution of mandates in favor of the opposition as the party continues to climb in the polls, a new survey published by Maariv revealed on Friday.
The survey indicated that a party led by Bennett would win 23 seats, two more than the previous survey two weeks ago.
An analysis of the data showed that most of the party’s support would come from undecided voters (nine seats) and those who currently backed Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party or Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu (five and four seats, respectively).
Bennett’s new party would take 19 seats away from the current opposition, leaving them with only 40 projected seats compared to 59 currently projected.
However, Bennett joining the opposition bloc would give him a coalition majority of 63 seats because, according to the survey, four more seats would go to the new Bennett party heading the bloc.
The poll also showed that the Likud was down by one seat this week, while National Unity was up by a similar amount, stabilizing at an equal number of 21 mandates.
Several other major changes were also recorded, although the difference in the bloc balance was insignificant: 51 for the coalition parties against 59 for the opposition and 10 seats for the Arab parties.
For the first time in several weeks, Gantz returned to the lead over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the premiership, with 40% support, compared to 39% (another 21% have no opinion formed yet).
Against opposition leader and Yesh Atid chair Yair Lapid, Netanyahu leads with 46% compared to 34%, but Bennett wins over Netanyahu by a considerable margin of 14 percentage points: 49% support for Bennett vs 35% for Netanyahu.
If elections were held today
In response to the question: If new Knesset elections were held today, who would you vote for?
The results were as follows: The Likud, led by Netanyahu, received 21 seats, down from 22 in the previous survey. The National Unity Party received 21 seats, an increase from 20. Yisrael Beytenu got 15 seats, up from 14. As for Yesh Atid, the party received 14 seats, a decrease from 15. The Democrats (Labor and Meretz), led by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yair Golan remained at nine seats.
Otzma Yehudit, the far-right party headed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, received nine seats, down from 10. Shas, led by Arye Deri, held steady at nine seats.
United Torah Judaism, led by Yitzchak Goldknopf and Moshe Gafni, gained eight seats, up from seven. Hadash-Ta’al, chaired by Ayman Odeh and Ahmed Tibi, received six seats, up from five.
Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, dropped to four seats from five. The Religious Zionist Party led by Bezalel Smotrich maintained its polling of four seats.
According to the survey, the coalition bloc would have 51 seats (52 last week), the opposition bloc 59 (58 last week), and the Arab parties 10.
In response to the question: If Knesset elections were held today and a new party led by Naftali Bennett was running, which party would you vote for?
The results were as follows: A new party led by Bennett received 23 seats, the Likud 19, the National Unity 14, Yesh Atid 11, Yisrael Beytenu nine, Shas nine, Otzma Yehudit eight, United Torah Judaism seven, the Democrats six, Hadash-Ta’al six, the Religious Zionist Party four, and Ra’am four.
In such a situation, the survey showed that the coalition block would have 47 seats, compared to 40 for the opposition, 23 for Bennett, and 10 for the Arab parties.
Turning to another noteworthy finding in this survey, the public is inclined to support the national memorial ceremony for the October 7 massacre organized by relatives of the hostages, bereaved families, evacuees, and survivors. The public prefers this ceremony over the government-initiated one.
As follows, per the survey, the national memorial ceremony received 45% support, while the governmental, state memorial, which Transportation Minister Miri Regev is advocating for, received only 16% support. Another 26% replied that it was not time for ceremonies, and 13% had no opinion.
The breakdown showed a clear division between the opposition and the coalition. An absolute majority of the voters of the opposition parties (68%) supported the private ceremony, compared to 46% of the voters of the coalition parties, who supported the government one.
Lazar Research Laboratories, spearheaded by Dr. Menachem Lazar and in collaboration with Panel4All, conducted the survey for Maariv.