Channel 12’s mandate poll, published Monday evening, shows Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a head-to-head matchup over who is more suitable to serve as prime minister. The poll also shows Yashar ranking as the largest party in the Knesset, with 24 seats.
According to the poll, Yashar, led by Eisenkot, would receive 24 seats if elections were held today. Netanyahu’s Likud would receive 22 seats, Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad party would receive 15 seats, and Yair Golan’s Democrats would receive 11 seats.
Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu and Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit would each receive 9 seats, according to the poll. United Torah Judaism would receive 8 seats, the Joint List would receive 7 seats, Shas would receive 7 seats, Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party would receive 4 seats, and Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am would receive 4 seats.
Three parties would fail to pass Israel’s electoral threshold, according to the poll: Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein’s Unity party, and the party led by Chili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel.
The bloc breakdown based on the results shows the coalition bloc with 50 seats, the opposition with 59 seats, and Arab parties with 11 seats.
Eisenkot beats Netanyahu in PM favorability metric, Arab parties remain at 11 seats
The poll also examined a scenario in which Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter, who is expected to announce the formation of a new party on Tuesday, runs in the election. In this scenario, Likud loses one seat, Bennett’s B’Yachad gains one seat, and Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party falls below the electoral threshold, similar to a Kan News mandate poll published Sunday.
Under that scenario, the bloc distribution would shift, with the coalition falling to 49 seats, the opposition rising to 60 seats, and Arab parties remaining with 11 seats.
Eisenkot also holds an advantage over Netanyahu when respondents were asked who is better suited to serve as prime minister. In a direct matchup between the two, 44% of respondents said Eisenkot was more suitable for the position, compared to 34% who chose Netanyahu.
In a matchup against Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu received 37% support as the more suitable candidate for prime minister, compared to 39% for Bennett. Against Avigdor Liberman, Netanyahu received 35% support, compared to 28% for Lieberman.
In the remaining scenarios, respondents answered either “don’t know” or “neither.”