Avi Greenstein Predicts Decline of Bennett-Lapid in Polls Favoring Gadi Eisenkot

Avi Greenstein explained why he predicted months ago that Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid would weaken in Israeli polls in favor of former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot. Speaking on i24NEWS more than two months ago, just after Bennett and Lapid's historic political alliance, Greenstein forecasted their gradual decline in poll support, with Eisenkot steadily gaining mandates. He noted this shift happened even faster than expected.

Greenstein emphasized that Israeli polls suffer from consistent biases and may influence voter behavior. He pointed out that after the formation of right-wing governments over the past decade, pollsters often show right-wing voters as disappointed and abandoning the coalition early on, even though election results tell a different story. For example, the drop from 64 Knesset seats to around 52 in polls occurred during the judicial reform debates, but no poll ever showed the right-wing bloc actually winning 64 seats.

He suggested that pollsters likely undersample certain populations and tailor their results to encourage left-center bloc voters by suggesting a viable chance of success, while signaling the "correct" vote choice within that bloc. Greenstein believes Eisenkot is currently the favored candidate in this dynamic, which explains why Bennett and Lapid lose mandates to him despite their heavy campaign spending.

Greenstein predicted that Eisenkot will continue to close the gap with and eventually surpass the Likud party in polls, with Bennett-Lapid falling to single digits and Eisenkot reaching around 30 mandates, about ten less than Likud. However, he stressed that actual election results will differ from these polls.

He also noted the potential Pygmalion effect of polls on parties crossing the electoral threshold, suggesting pollsters might use this influence deliberately. He cited the recent attempt to erase Religious Zionism from the map as an example of such manipulation that was abandoned once the party's stable base became clear. Lastly, Greenstein dismissed the myth of half a million right-wing voters switching to centrist or other parties like Bennett, Lieberman, or Gantz, stating simply that such a mass shift does not exist.