Kan Publishes One Election Survey and Three Israeli Outlets Derive Three Different Bloc Totals
Haaretz reports the anti-Netanyahu Jewish parties at 56 seats, the Jerusalem Post the Zionist opposition at 55, and the Times of Israel a virtual tie. No sample size or field dates were published with the poll.
The Kan public broadcaster’s survey, published Sunday ahead of the 27 October election, puts Likud back on top at 24 seats, up one, with Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar unchanged at 23 — reversing a run of polls in which Yashar was level or ahead. Behind them: Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad on 13, Yair Golan’s Democrats on 10 (+2), Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu on 10 (+1), Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit on 8 (−1), Shas and United Torah Judaism on 8 each, Ra’am on 6 (+1), Religious Zionism on 5 (+1) and Hadash-Ta’al on 5 (−1). On leadership preference the same poll gives Netanyahu 41 percent against Eisenkot’s 34, and 41 against Bennett’s 31. The ten-day trend from other houses: Channel 12 had Likud and Yashar tied at 23 on 3 August; by 6 August Yashar led 23 to 22 and the opposition bloc had slipped to 58.
The blocs are where the readings diverge. Haaretz reports the Jewish parties opposed to Netanyahu at 56, up three. The Jerusalem Post puts the Zionist opposition at 55, three more than the coalition, and models a scenario in which Yoav Segalovitz joining Ra’am plus a Hadash–Ta’al–Balad joint list lifts the Arab parties to 13 and cuts Netanyahu’s bloc to 52. The Times of Israel’s Monday liveblog entry, timestamped 05:46, describes a Kan poll showing the two blocs in a virtual tie with neither able to form a government, and both new right-wing lists — Tropper and Hendel’s, and the Erdan–Edelstein list — below the threshold. Whether that is the same survey is not stated. No sample size or field dates accompanied Sunday’s numbers. The most recent Kan poll with methodology attached, fielded 12 July by Kantar, drew 551 respondents from 2,359 invited and found security the decisive issue for 25 percent, an October 7 commission of inquiry for 24, cost of living for 22 and judicial reform for 12.
Assessment: Bloc totals are editorial products, not poll findings. Each of these three numbers is arithmetically defensible depending on whether Arab parties, sub-threshold lists and a hypothetical joint slate are counted in, and none of the outlets is misreporting; readers who see only one number are being handed a conclusion the pollster did not publish. Treat seat projections without sample size and field dates as unusable for trend claims, particularly across four polling houses in ten days. The one figure worth tracking is the 24 percent naming an October 7 inquiry as decisive — the same demand hostage families put to voters from Habima Square on Saturday.