Poll Shows Dramatic Shakeup at the Top as Bennett and Lapid Slide

A new seat poll shows that, for the first time since founding his party, Cabinet member and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot is posting a dramatic surge, putting his Yeshar! party at a record 20 seats as part of a steady strengthening trend in recent weeks. According to the Israel Hayom poll, Eisenkot’s impressive rise comes mainly at the expense of the political partnership of Benjamin Bennett and Yair Lapid. Their Yachad party loses three seats compared with the previous poll and falls to 19 seats.

Those seats moved directly to the hot rival in the bloc, making Yachad the third-largest party in the Knesset and the second-largest in the center-left bloc. According to the poll, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud continues to lead with 24 seats. It is followed by Gadi Eisenkot’s Yeshar! with 20 seats, and Bennett and Lapid’s Yachad with 19 seats.

Further down the list are four parties with 9 seats each: Otzma Yehudit led by Itamar Ben Gvir, The Democrats, Shas, and Yisrael Beitenu led by Avigdor Lieberman. United Torah Judaism receives 7 seats in the poll, while the Arab parties remain stable, with the Hadash-Ta'al list getting 6 seats and Ra'am receiving 4 seats. At the bottom of the parties that cross the electoral threshold is Religious Zionism, led by Bezalel Smotrich, which barely clears the threshold with only 4 seats. Outside the Knesset are Blue and White and Balad.

Block picture: no one reaches 61. The distribution of the political map by the traditional blocs continues to point to a deep political deadlock, as neither side manages to reach the majority needed to form a government without complex partnerships. Netanyahu’s supporters bloc, Likud, Shas, United Torah Judaism and Religious Zionism, gets 53 seats in the current poll. By contrast, the sovereign opposition parties reach 57 seats. The Arab parties, Hadash-Ta'al and Ra'am, hold 10 seats together and serve as the overall balance of power on the map.