Zuriel Sharon, the CEO of Direct Polls, says Naftali Bennett has definitively lost the race to lead the center-left bloc to former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. In a new opinion analysis based on the institute’s in-depth polls, Sharon argues that opposition voters have already settled who should face Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the next election, and that the answer is now Eisenkot.
According to the poll cited in the article, 56% of opposition voters believe Bennett is wrong to insist that only a right-wing candidate can beat Netanyahu. Just 29% say that argument is justified. Sharon says this shows a gap between Bennett’s strategy and what center-left voters actually want.
He offers several possible reasons for Bennett’s decline, including his alliance with Yair Lapid, concerns that Bennett might eventually sit with Netanyahu, and doubts about whether Bennett fits the role naturally. The article says Bennett had led this camp in the polls for more than a year, starting with an informal campaign after the war began in 2023, but that his support was never a stable base, only temporary votes that had previously drifted from Benny Gantz.
That shift has become visible in recent polling. A Channel 13 poll this week gave Eisenkot’s Yashar party 20 seats, while Bennett and Lapid’s Yeshar together fell to 17. The gap between them, once only one seat, has widened. Netanyahu has attacked Eisenkot in a video, saying he would not have struck Iran and would have had no government without Arab parties. Eisenkot replied by posting Netanyahu’s past praise of his military service, writing that Netanyahu once recognized his offensiveness “hundreds of times.” Sharon concludes that opposition voters will more easily back an “ex fighter from Herzliya” than “the kippah-wearing man from Ra’anana,” and says Eisenkot is effectively the center-left leader for the 2026 election.
