Maariv poll: Likud is ahead and there is a fierce competition between Netanyahu and Eisenkot

Tel Aviv - Ofoq News - An opinion poll published by the Israeli newspaper "Maariv", today, Friday, showed that the strength of the Likud Party increased by one seat, which led to the camp of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being tied with the camp of the Zionist opposition parties, with each of them obtaining 52 seats.

This came despite the atmosphere of commemoration of the third anniversary of the October 7 attack and the protests that Israel witnessed, events that were expected to reflect differently on the results of the poll.

The poll, conducted by the "Lazar Research Institute" headed by Menachem Lazar, in cooperation with the "Panel4ALL" company, showed that the "Yashar" party led by Gadi Eisenkot leads the results by winning 21 seats, followed by the Likud Party headed by Netanyahu with 20 seats.

According to the results of the poll, the "Ofek News" party won 13 seats, the Democrats Party won 9 seats, as well as the "Israel Our Home" party headed by Avigdor Lieberman won 9 seats, while the "Otzma Yehudit" party led by Itamar Ben Gvir got 8 seats.

The Joint Arab List won 7 seats, the United Torah Judaism Party got 7 seats, the Shas Party got 7 seats, while the Religious Zionism Party got 6 seats, the United Arab List got 5 seats, and the “Amekh Israel” and “Reserve and Economic Soldiers” parties got 4 seats each.

The poll indicated that the Zionist opposition camp declined by one seat, as a result of the decline in the strength of the Democratic Party by one seat, while the rest of the camp’s parties maintained their strength. On the other hand, the "Otzma Yehudit" party declined by one seat, while the "Religious Zionism" party rose by one seat, while the Arab parties maintained their strength by obtaining a combined 12 seats.

Regarding the expected participation rate, 78% of respondents said that they were sure of voting in the next elections, while 18% said they would participate, and 4% said they would not vote, with varying degrees of probability.

The distribution of results according to camps showed that enthusiasm for participating in the elections was higher among supporters of opposition parties, as 86% of them confirmed that they would vote, compared to 81% of supporters of government coalition parties.

Regarding the most suitable person to head the government, the poll showed that 38% of Israelis want Netanyahu to continue in his position after the elections, compared to 24% who prefer Eisenkot, and 14% who prefer former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, while the other candidates received single percentages.

The poll also showed that 59% of Israelis oppose the participation of an Arab party in the government coalition after the elections, compared to 36% who support this, while 5% said they do not know.

On the other hand, 53% supported the participation of the Haredi party in the next government coalition, while 41% opposed it, and 6% did not specify their position.

In a comparison between the candidates for prime minister, Eisenkot maintained his lead over Netanyahu, as he received 46% support compared to 40% for Netanyahu, which are the same percentages recorded in the previous poll.

The difference between Bennett and Netanyahu also narrowed to two percentage points, as Bennett received 44% compared to 42% for Netanyahu. On the other hand, Netanyahu led Lieberman by six percentage points, receiving 44%, compared to 38% for Lieberman.

The survey was conducted on October 7 and 8 on a representative sample of 700 people from the population in Israel, both Jews and Arabs, aged 18 years and above. The number of people who were asked to participate in the survey was 4,667 people, while the maximum margin of error was 3.7%.