Wavering in the polls, receiving millions: 22 million shekels for Gantz and Smotrich

According to the latest polls, both the National Unity party led by Benny Gantz and the Religious Zionism party led by Bezalel Smotrich are not passing the electoral threshold, but they will receive election funding advances in the millions of shekels: 11.7 million shekels for Gantz, 10.2 million shekels for Smotrich. If both parties remain outside the Knesset, there is a fear of a bad debt being created.

Both parties said they would take the full election funding advance they are entitled to. The National Unity party announced that it is also raising donations. Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid, is also expected to take an election funding advance of 35.2 million shekels, even though according to the polls it is expected to drop in the number of mandates, from 24 today to 15 (with Bennett). In such a case, the party will receive election funding of only about 29 million shekels and will be required to take a loan from the Knesset. To repay the loan, it will have to pledge half of the current party funding money in the next term.

With the submission of the lists to the Central Elections Committee on September 8, the parties will enter the critical and final stage of the election campaign, and for this they need a lot of money. The parties serving in the Knesset will receive election funding advances next week in a total amount of 175 million shekels, and the new parties are expected to receive about 35 million shekels. In total, these are advances in the amount of about 210 million shekels. The total cost of election funding for the parties is estimated at a quarter of a billion shekels.

The amount of the advance is determined according to the number of MKs of the party in the outgoing Knesset. At the end of July 2026, the Knesset passed a law that increased the election funding unit by 12% to 1.835 million shekels per MK, and the election funding advance to 80% of the funding unit. The advance today is 1.468 million shekels per MK in a serving party. In contrast, new parties are entitled to an advance of up to 18.3 million shekels, in exchange for presenting a bank guarantee.

The chairman of Yashar LeYisrael, Gadi Eisenkot, has so far raised guarantees in a total amount of 16.6 million shekels, as well as donations in the amount of about 2 million shekels. His party stated that it has not yet been decided whether to take the maximum advance it is entitled to. In the latest polls, Eisenkot's party is receiving 25 mandates. If this forecast comes true, it will be entitled to total election funding of 45.8 million shekels.

As revealed in Calcalist, before the merger with Yesh Atid, the Beyachad party led by Naftali Bennett raised guarantees for taking credit in the amount of 33 million shekels. Of these, the party used 10 million shekels, and it has no need to exercise additional guarantees. Likud, which has 32 mandates in the outgoing Knesset, will receive an election funding advance of 46.8 million shekels.

Last week, Ofer Winter launched his party "Amcha Yisrael", and two days later received a guarantee of 2.95 million shekels from Jay Foreman, the CEO and president of the toy company Basic Fun. According to the polls, Winter is reaching 6 mandates. Aviv Winter, Winter's daughter, gave the party a guarantee of 150 thousand shekels, and Avraham Rahamim, the owner of the Lotus company from Jerusalem, gave a guarantee of 125 thousand shekels. In total, the party received guarantees in the amount of 3.225 million shekels. In addition, it received a loan of 14 thousand shekels from Yonatan Greenwald, a businessman from Miami, who previously gave guarantees in a total amount of 4.1 million shekels to the Yamina party and the New Hope party. The party also took a loan of 200 thousand shekels from Discount Bank. By the way, the name of Winter's party as it appears in the Registrar of Parties is "Ami Chai La'ad".

The rest of the new parties, which according to the polls do not pass the electoral threshold, are raising guarantees with which they will be able to receive an election funding advance, according to the amount of guarantees presented. Gilad Erdan, chairman of the Unity party, raised guarantees of about 3 million shekels. The Reservists party led by Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper raised guarantees in the amount of 1.6 million shekels, among others from Yonatan Half from the ION hedge fund.