Israel’s Pollsters Disagree About Who Is Winning, and the Best Predictor Is the Channel
Twenty-three days before the 27 October vote, Channel 14 and i24NEWS show Netanyahu clearly ahead while Maariv, N12 and Channel 13 show Eisenkot leading or near-tied. The spread is larger than most of the movement being reported as news.
Channel 13’s poll, published on the evening of 30 September and reported by Haaretz, put the Netanyahu bloc at 54 seats against 52 for the rival Jewish-parties bloc, with Arab parties — Ra’am and the Joint List — on 14. The party lines: Yashar 21 (−1), Likud 19 (+1), Together 11, Democrats 11, Joint List 9 (+1), Yisrael Beiteinu 9, Otzma Yehudit 8 (+1), UTJ 8, Shas 7, Religious Zionism 7, with the Reservists list of Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha below the 3.25% threshold. Haaretz’s own framing is that the opposition’s refusal to sit with Arab parties is what hands Netanyahu the edge. Channel 12, a week earlier, had Yashar 23, Likud 20, Bennett’s Beyachad 13 and an Eisenkot bloc of 54 to the coalition’s 50.
The divergence is institutional. A Jerusalem Post survey of five polls after lists closed found Yashar largest in four, with i24NEWS/Direct Polls the outlier at Likud 27, Yashar 22; Kan had Yashar 25, Likud 21, B’yachad 14. By late September the Post was describing the split plainly: Channel 14 and i24NEWS giving Likud a clear advantage, Maariv, N12 and Channel 13 showing Eisenkot ahead or near-tied, with i24NEWS putting the coalition bloc at 60. On preferred prime minister the gap is roughly fifteen points — Channel 14 on 23 September had Netanyahu 53 to Eisenkot 47; Maariv on 9–10 September had Eisenkot 50 to Netanyahu 38; Channel 13 on 2 September, Eisenkot 47 to Netanyahu 37.
Assessment: Two cautions before any of these numbers are read as a trend. First, the preferred-PM series above is drawn from a compiled tracker, not from the publishing houses directly; each line needs checking against its outlet before it carries weight. Second, seat polls are being reported as horse-race news when the variance between houses exceeds the week-to-week movement inside any one of them. The arithmetic that actually decides this is bloc arithmetic: Yashar can finish largest and still lose, because 12 to 14 Arab-party seats sit outside every coalition the opposition says it will build. Watch the ballot-access litigation and the threshold cases, not the leaderboard.