It’s been a tough two weeks for the Lapid-Bennett coalition in general and the Yamina party in particular. According to survey maker Direct Polls, all the internal polls they have been conducting over the past few months indicate that Yamina and New Hope are shrinking together to just 7 seats if new elections were held now. Each of them has a loyal electorate worth about 2 seats, and the remaining three frequently switch between the two parties. The past two difficult weeks for Yamina have resulted in those voters wandering off to New Hope which, after a few weeks below the vote threshold again manages to grab 4 seats in Sunday’s Direct Polls.
So, here goes, if new elections were held today, this is what we’d be looking at:
Likud – 35
Yesh Atid – 20
Shas – 9
United Torah Judaism – 8
Joint Arab List – 7
Blue&White – 7
Religious Zionism – 7
Labor – 7
Israel Beiteinu – 7
Ra’am – 5
New Hope – 4
Meretz – 4
Yamina – 2.9%, short of the required 3.25%
Both Yamina and New Hope will have about 18 months until the rotation when Yair Lapid takes over as prime minister. Both parties need to perform some spectacular political feats to drag back their 13 seats. Meanwhile, it should be noted that the political capital of Habayit Hayehudi, represented today by Yamina and Religious Zionism, has shrunk from its 12 seats only a few years ago, to barely 9.
The poll was conducted on October 30, using a digital system combined with a panel, with 637 adult respondents (age 18+) from the entire population in Israel. The statistical sampling error is +- 4.4% with a probability of 95%.
