Will Saglovich bring Eisenkot the premiership?
The State of Israel is heading to elections, and Globes' "Mashrokit" (Whistle) brings the latest polls from all media outlets. Who is strengthening, who is weakening, and how does it affect the balance of power between the camps? With the mandate picture static, the political arena is looking at one specific move.
Globes' poll of polls is back. Israel is heading to elections, and we will be following the campaign closely, bringing the latest data from leading media outlets to examine who is strengthening, who is weakening, and who is hovering around the electoral threshold.
What are the figures? Likud is leading again with 25 mandates, followed by Yesh Atid led by Eisenkot, which strengthens by one mandate to 23. The following parties remain with the same number of mandates: The Democrats with 10; Yisrael Beiteinu with 9; United Torah Judaism, Shas, and Otzma Yehudit with 8 each. Hadash-Ta'al rises to 6 mandates, Ra'am and Religious Zionism with 5 each. In half of the polls, the party of Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper crosses the electoral threshold with 4 mandates, but Blue and White led by Benny Gantz remains below it in all polls.
What is the conclusion? The opposition bloc without the Arab parties weakens by one mandate to 56 in the poll average, while the Arab parties strengthen by one mandate to 11. The coalition bloc remains unchanged with 54 mandates.
Behind the numbers: It seems this has become a phenomenon. This week, the only poll where the opposition without the Arab parties wins 61 mandates is the Maariv poll, where Bennett's party wins the highest number of mandates — a trend continuing for the fourth week in a row.
In most polls (Channels 11, 12, 13, and Maariv), the entire opposition bloc (including the Arab parties) wins at least 68 mandates. In the i24news poll, it stands at 62, and only in the Channel 14 poll does it stop at 58 mandates, with the coalition winning a majority of 62.
The polls have raised questions surrounding the "Beit Tsioni" party of Chili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel, as it crosses the electoral threshold in half of the polls but fails to do so in the other half.
The additional figure: Is Yoav Saglovich's joining Ra'am, led by Mansour Abbas, the decisive move that will bring the opposition to power? The mandate picture does not show any indication of this yet; all polls give Ra'am 5 mandates. Although most polls were conducted before the announcement of Saglovich's departure from Yesh Atid, it can be assumed that respondents' answers reflect expectations of such a move. As of now, there is no evidence of changes in voting patterns.
However, the second part of the answer is the feasibility of Saglovich making Ra'am a possible coalition partner. The general public is not enthusiastic: in the Channel 12 poll, only 28% of respondents support relying on Yoav Saglovich as the "61st finger" in forming a government, and in the Maariv poll, only 20% support integrating Ra'am into a future coalition, even if Saglovich is placed in the second spot on the list.
However, the more relevant figure is the level of support among opposition voters. Here the picture changes dramatically: according to the Channel 12 poll, 45% of opposition voters support relying on Saglovich as the "61st finger," while only 27% oppose it.
