Political analyst Amit Segal wrote in his weekly Israel Hayom column that the ultra-Orthodox parties could suffer a sharp drop, even a “historic collapse,” in the next election if turnout among Haredi voters is lower than usual. He said right-wing blocs often outperform polls because of high Haredi participation, writing, “Take sky-high turnout, multiply it by the largest natural growth in the Western world and you get two more Knesset seats.”
Segal noted that in the last election the Haredi parties won 17.5 seats, rounded to 18 under the Bader-Offer method, while most current polls give them only 16. He said it had seemed likely they would make up the gap on election day, “unless the surprise works the other way this time.” He added that Haredi politicians, journalists and influencers are warning that turnout could “collapse,” in part because the public is deeply disappointed with its representatives, whom he described as mostly veterans from “the previous millennium.”
According to Segal, many Haredi voters blame their leaders for sanctions and for the detention of draft evaders, and believe they “failed badly” in the outgoing term. He also wrote that the legislative blitz portrayed in the general press as greed and hubris is, in his view, a frantic effort by Shas and United Torah Judaism to show their voters they are still accomplishing something. He said this was also why the mainstream Agudat Yisrael faction helped organize major traffic disruptions across Israel, together with the extremist Jerusalem Faction.
Segal also raised the opposite possibility, saying the cooperation between Agudat Yisrael and the Jerusalem Faction may hint at a split between Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael before the election. He cited Yated Ne’eman editor Aryeh Zisman, who suggested recent developments could indicate a separation between the Lithuanian Degel HaTorah and the Hasidic Agudat Yisrael. If Agudat Yisrael runs separately, Segal said, it could clear the electoral threshold with votes from Jerusalem Faction supporters, many of whom currently boycott elections. He argued that mutual hostility could drive turnout, echoing the 1988 election, when Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael ran separately and together won almost twice as many votes as they had as one bloc, helping create the first major Haredi political force.
