Netanyahu's nightmare begins to get numbers: Eisenkot at a new peak | Maariv poll

The Likud party may have grabbed the headlines this week with the primaries, but the one who is meanwhile continuing to accumulate political power is on the other side of the political map - Gadi Eisenkot - whose party is reaching a peak in the number of mandates. The former Chief of Staff garners 26 mandates - an increase of 3 from the poll about a week ago. This is according to the poll conducted for "Maariv" by Lazar Research, headed by Dr. Menachem Lazar, in collaboration with the online respondent panel Panel4All.

The Likud party drops by one mandate and stands at 20, but following the strengthening of Otzma Yehudit and HaTzionut HaDatit, the coalition bloc rises by one mandate and reaches 49 mandates.

Following Eisenkot's strengthening, the opposition bloc continues to climb and receives 60 mandates - a touch away from the 61-mandate coalition. The Reservists' party (Beit Tzioni) receives only 2.9% support and does not pass the electoral threshold. This is after a series of polls in which it received 4 mandates.

Other parties that do not pass the electoral threshold are the new party led by Ofer Winter, HaAchdut led by Gilad Erdan, the New Economic Party led by Prof. Yaron Zelekha, and Blue and White led by Benny Gantz. These parties are currently "wasting" the votes of 8.3% of all voters - which are worth about 10 mandates.

The poll was conducted shortly before the announcement of the union between the Hadash-Ta'al and Balad parties. However, Hadash-Ta'al strengthened this week by one mandate - to 6, and together with the five mandates of Ra'am, the Arab parties in the current poll receive 11 mandates.

Eisenkot also increases the gap this week between himself and Netanyahu on the question of suitability for Prime Minister to a record difference of 14%: the former Chief of Staff receives 52% support against 38% support for Netanyahu. The gap in favor of Bennett (45% against 41% for Netanyahu) is similar to that in the previous poll, as is Netanyahu's slight advantage over Avigdor Lieberman (42% against 39%, respectively).

The poll also shows that coalition voters are more inclined to oppose (40%) than to support (34%) Netanyahu reserving a spot for his son, Yair Netanyahu, on the Likud list in the Knesset elections. 26% of them have no opinion on the matter. Among Likud voters, the picture is the opposite - 49% of them support such a reservation, compared to 34% who oppose and 17% who have no opinion on the matter.

Another worrying figure: half of Israelis (50%) fear a situation in which the side that loses the Knesset elections will not accept the results. 38% do not fear this and another 12% do not know.

The poll was conducted on August 19-20, 2026. 3,916 people were asked to participate and 501 respondents answered (13%), representing a representative sample of the adult population in the State of Israel aged 18 and over, Jews and Arabs. The maximum sampling error in this poll is 4.4%.