A new Kan News election poll published Sunday evening shows a dramatically more complicated political map following the latest upheaval in Israel’s election campaign, with a joint ticket led by Yoaz Hendel and Prof. Yaron Zelicha crossing the electoral threshold and winning four seats.
Because Hendel and Zelicha are not currently aligned with either of the two main political blocs, their entry into the Knesset would leave both sides further from forming a government without bringing in parties from outside their natural camps.
According to the poll, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s bloc stands at 52 seats, one seat ahead of the bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, which falls from 55 seats in last week’s poll to 51.
Netanyahu’s bloc maintains its overall strength even as Likud continues to weaken. Likud drops another seat compared with last week and now stands at 20 mandates.
Eisenkot’s Yashar! party also loses one seat and is projected to win 23 seats, while Naftali Bennett’s Beyachad party falls by one seat to 13.
The Democrats, Otzma Yehudit, United Torah Judaism and the Joint Arab List each also lose one seat compared with the previous Kan News poll.
Ra’am rises from five seats last week to six, while Religious Zionism also climbs to six seats amid its technical bloc agreement with Moshe Feiglin and the Zehut party.
Under the current numbers, Netanyahu’s bloc together with Hendel and Zelicha would reach only 56 seats, leaving it five seats short of the 61 needed for a governing majority.
Eisenkot’s bloc together with Hendel and Zelicha would total 55 seats and would still require Ra’am in order to move above the 61-seat threshold.
The poll also tested who Israelis view as best suited to serve as prime minister.
After three weeks of tight results between Netanyahu and Bennett, Netanyahu widens his advantage, with 37% of respondents saying he is better suited for the premiership compared with 32% for Bennett.
Against Eisenkot, however, Netanyahu continues to trail. Eisenkot receives 38% support as the preferred prime minister compared with 35% for Netanyahu, maintaining a three-point lead.
In a direct matchup between Eisenkot and Bennett, Eisenkot holds a substantial advantage, with 36% of respondents saying Eisenkot is better suited for the position compared with 17% for Bennett.
Respondents were also asked to grade Netanyahu’s conduct on the morning of October 7, against the backdrop of a Kan News report that Netanyahu spoke with the IDF chief of staff only three hours after the Hamas attack began.
Sixty-two percent of respondents rated Netanyahu’s handling of that morning as “not good,” while 26% described his conduct as “good.”
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
