Israeli networks put Netanyahu’s bloc narrowly ahead, and still nowhere near 61

The Times of Israel led its 17 September liveblog with the line “TV poll shows Netanyahu-led bloc slightly ahead of opposition parties,” under a standfirst noting the prime minister and his allies “would still be well short of a 61-seat majority if elections held now.” Which network commissioned the survey, its sample, its field dates and its margin of error did not appear in the material available to this desk, and so are not printed here. What is documented is the fortnight behind it. On 2 September, Channel 13 put the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs level at 53 seats each, with Arab parties holding 14 and the balance of power — a poll of 940 respondents with a stated margin of error of 3.4 percent, fielded before the 8 September slate-filing deadline. The Times of Israel called it “a stark shift from most recent polls.”

The day after slates closed, three surveys moved little. Channel 12 had the anti-Netanyahu bloc at 57 and the Netanyahu bloc at 52, with Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar on 25 and Likud unchanged on 21; Channel 13 had Yashar 22 and Likud 19; Kan had Yashar 24, Likud 21. B’Yachad, the Bennett–Lapid slate, sat at 12 or 13 across all three, the Democrats at 9 to 10, United Torah Judaism at 8, Shas at 7. A Jerusalem Post round-up around 10 September mapped the blocs at 52 apiece, with 12 seats for Arab parties and 4 for the new Hendel–Zelekha list. Inside the same bloc that is supposedly gaining, the Times of Israel reported on 16 September that Likud is threatening to sue Ofer Winter, whose People of Israel slate polls at four to five seats, after Winter said Likud MKs were seeking to “destroy” him and alleged private investigators had been sent after him.

Voting is on 27 October. Two of the strongest recent numbers point in opposite directions: Kan had Yashar at 23 against Likud’s 20 in early September, while a Jerusalem Post write-up around 13 September was headlined on Likud and Yashar “trad[ing] leads” with the picture “unclear.” That JPost page interleaves figures from two different pollsters in the form retrieved here — Democrats 10, Yisrael Beytenu 8, Otzma Yehudit 8 in one, Bennett 13 and Winter 4 in another — and no single table should be built from it.

Assessment: The interesting variable in Israeli polling is not the blocs, which have barely moved since the slates closed, but the threshold. Edelstein–Erdan’s Unity, Gantz’s Blue and White and the Hendel–Tropper list were all below it on 2 September; Hendel–Zelekha was at 3.2 percent in one 13 September reading. A right-wing micro-party that clears 3.25 percent by a few thousand votes changes the arithmetic more than a four-seat swing between Likud and Yashar. Note also what the “bloc ahead” framing conceals: both camps are being counted without the Arab parties that hold 12 to 14 seats, which is why nobody reaches 61 in any poll. Read the headline claim as a campaign artefact until a network’s seat table is published.