Channel 13 Poll Shows Eisenkot Surges Past Bennett as Netanyahu’s Likud Leads

A Channel 13 poll published Wednesday, about four months before the election, shows Likud led by Benjamin Netanyahu still the largest party with 22 seats, while the anti-Netanyahu camp is reshaped by a sharp rise for Gadi Eisenkot. Eisenkot’s Yashar would win 20 seats and overtake the Yeshar? no, the "Together" list led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, which drops to 17.

The rest of the vote share in the poll gives 11 seats each to Yair Golan’s Democrats and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu. Shas led by Aryeh Deri would get 9, and Otzma Yehudit led by Itamar Ben Gvir and United Torah Judaism would each receive 8. Hadash-Ta'al would win 6 seats, while Ra'am led by Mansour Abbas and the Religious Zionist Party led by Bezalel Smotrich would clear the threshold with 4 seats each. The Reserve Soldiers party, Balad and Blue and White would remain below the electoral threshold.

On bloc totals, the current opposition bloc led by Eisenkot reaches 59 seats, Netanyahu’s coalition bloc gets 51, and the Arab parties together hold 10. The survey also tested merger scenarios in the center-left: a joint run led by Eisenkot would produce 35 seats, while a Bennett-led version would get 31. In both cases, the Reserve Soldiers party would enter the Knesset with 4 seats, bringing the bloc to 61 seats under Eisenkot or 60 under Bennett.

The poll also asked undecided voters which camp they trust on key issues. On Iran, 43% favored Netanyahu’s coalition, compared with 17% for Eisenkot and 15% for Bennett. On the cost of living, 36% backed a Bennett-led coalition, versus 17% for Eisenkot and 15% for Netanyahu. On the issue of internal divisions, 31% preferred an Eisenkot-led coalition, 26% Bennett and 11% Netanyahu. The poll found that 72% of Israelis have already decided how they will vote, 11% are undecided, 9% have decided but not finally, and 8% say they will not vote. The survey was conducted by Hamadad with Hamifkad Project, Ascaria, and Stat-Net, with statistical advice from Professor David Steinberg and additional data from Hive.