Six Israeli polls in eight days put Netanyahu’s bloc anywhere between 43 and 59 seats
One pollster gives the prime minister a majority. Every other house gives him a defeat. The spread is the story, and the new variable is a retired brigadier general.
Maariv’s poll of 28 August, by Lazar Research with Panel4ALL, put Netanyahu’s bloc at 43 seats without Ofer Winter’s new party and 48 with it, the Zionist opposition down one to 59 and the Arab parties at 13 — with 11.5% of voters undecided, a reservoir larger than the gap between most of these blocs. Walla, on 26 August, had the same shape: Netanyahu 43, opposition 59, Winter six, Religious Zionism below the threshold at 2.6%. Channel 13’s poll of 26 August, conducted by Hamadad with Stat-Net, Midgam Project and Askaria, had Eisenkot’s Yashar at 24 and Likud plunging four to 19; Haaretz’s own dek put the coalition at 48 while its body text said 49. Zman Yisrael, sampling 500 with a stated margin of error of ±4.4%, had Yashar 26, Likud 22 and the pro-Netanyahu bloc including Winter at 51.
One poll dissents entirely. Direct Polls, for i24NEWS, published around 27 August, gave Winter’s party — rendered in Hebrew as Amcha Yisrael — eight seats and the right-religious bloc 59 against the centre-left’s 49, with Likud largest at 26 and Yashar second at 23. It is the only survey in the set that puts Likud ahead and the only one that hands Netanyahu a governing majority. Winter, who launched the party in Jerusalem on 25 August, told Haaretz on 27 August that Netanyahu is the only candidate he would endorse for prime minister — a statement that followed, per Haaretz, a two-day Likud campaign warning voters he would recommend Liberman or Eisenkot instead. Liberman, on 30 August: “I welcome any good man who joins the political system. Winter is a man of values, a combat soldier, and I welcome [him].”
Assessment: Do not average these. A poll average built across Direct Polls and Channel 13 produces a number no pollster believes and hides the only finding they agree on: Winter’s seats come out of Smotrich’s hide, and in most scenarios push Religious Zionism under the threshold, which subtracts from the bloc he says he wants to serve. The Likud trend line is the harder datum — 24 seats on 30 June, 23 on 4 August, 22 on 11 August, 19 on 26 August. Netanyahu’s Monday warning that Winter could bring his coalition down is an admission that the threat is arithmetic, not ideological. Note also that Winter was Liberman’s military secretary at the defence ministry, which is why his endorsement is being read in Israel as reversible.