Israel to vote Monday for third time in less than a year, latest polls show possible shifts in public opinion

Yossi Lempkowicz

4 years ago

Two polls have shown that Likud now has more seats than Blue and White, according to Channel 12 at 34 to 33, and according to KAN at 35-34. The Channel 12 poll also showed Netanyahu widening his lead against Gantz 43 percent to 33 percent in the question of who is most qualified to be prime minister. That reality has reignited both parties in the last week.

”We are working hard to make sure that these elections will be the last in this cycle,” Boaz Toporovksy, of Blue and White, said. “Last time, we showed that Blue and White has the best election day team and plan, and that gave us the victory. The election day effort is what will bring us to a decisive victory and will break the stalemate this time around,” he affirmed.

This Monday, 2 March, Israelis will vote for the third time in less than a year. The latest polls are showing some possible shifts in public opinion as the parties have begun their last-ditch efforts to gain votes.

According to the last polls of the campaign, neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing/religious “bloc” of parties, nor Benny Gantz and his centre-left “bloc,” are likely to win enough seats to form a 61-seat governing coalition. Similar to the two previous elections, pundits expect the most likely outcome to be continued deadlock after election day.

Both Likud, and Blue and White, are fighting for the votes of the undecided in the right-wing sector. Blue and White’s message is focusing on the fact that Netanyahu cannot run the country while he has to be in court for his trial on corruption charges, which begins March 17.

Blue and White had maintained a lead of two to four seats in almost all polls during this election campaign. The party’s strategy had been to make sure they win a few more seats than Likud—a result it believes will force the president to charge leader Benny Gantz with trying to form a majority coalition.

But two polls have shown that Likud now has more seats than Blue and White, according to Channel 12 at 34 to 33, and according to KAN at 35-34. The Channel 12 poll also showed Netanyahu widening his lead against Gantz 43 percent to 33 percent in the question of who is most qualified to be prime minister. That reality has reignited both parties in the last week.

Likud Knesset member Yoav Kisch told JNS that “the polls are showing that our bringing out the vote effort is working. There are a few hundred thousand Likud voters who didn’t vote last time. Our ministers and MKs are working with every branch in the country, and the prime minister is doing multiple events every night. We will continue this effort in order to accomplish two goals: to win more seats than Blue and White, and even more importantly, to try to get to 61 seats for the right-wing/religious bloc.”

The polls indicate that Netanyahu’s bloc is in the 56 to 58 range, making a 61-seat majority that would secure him as prime minister within reach, despite the fact that the last two rounds of elections failed to accomplish this.

Blue and White leaders are focusing on regaining their lead and building new momentum. Knesset member Boaz Toporovksy, who heads the party’s field effort, told JNS that more than 15,000 volunteers are canvassing shopping malls and major junctions to try to get more votes. They have a phone squad calling undecided voters who they view as “right-wing lite” in an attempt to convince them to vote Blue and White. They are also making sure that their teams in all 250 party branches are filling the last events for the party leadership and are prepared for their responsibilities on election day.

We are working hard to make sure that these elections will be the last in this cycle,” Toporovksy told JNS. “Last time, we showed that Blue and White has the best election day team and plan, and that gave us the victory. The election day effort is what will bring us to a decisive victory and will break the stalemate this time around,” he affirmed.

Likud has been responding by declaring that even while in trial, Netanyahu can do a better job than Gantz. Likud has also promised a series of action items should they maintain the premiership, including moving forward with U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan; further construction in the settlements and Jerusalem; and even erasing the criminal records of Israelis convicted of possessing or using marijuana.

Complicating matter for Blue and White is the decision by acting state attorney Dan Eldad to open a criminal probe into Fifth Dimension, a now closed intelligence company that was chaired by Benny Gantz, over allegations of illegalities in securing a contract with the Israeli police. While Gantz is not a suspect in the case, Netanyahu has succeeded in convincing undecided swing voters that the Blue and White leader is not as clean as has been portrayed. In response, Blue and White has been contesting the matter with declarations about their zero-tolerance policy for corruption and their legislative plans to support this.

Despite all the herculean efforts on both sides to garner more votes, unless Netanyahu succeeds in bringing 61 seats to the right-wing religious bloc—regardless of who wins more votes—neither he nor Gantz has the ability to reach a majority.

This could mean—the expense and patience of Israeli voters notwithstanding—that a strong likelihood exists that the Jewish state will head to a fourth election, most likely to be held in September.

Netanyahu has dominated the campaign agenda on a daily basis, issuing promises to multiple constituencies – settlers, Ethiopian-Israelis, Arab-Israelis, cannabis users, and more – in an effort to find every last vote and make up what he has described as a gap of 300,000 right-wing voters lost in last September’s election relative to the April 2019 election. More insidiously, Netanyahu and his supporters have launched a scorched-earth campaign against Gantz’s integrity and mental health. The Likud campaign has emphasised one message above all: “Gantz has no government without Tibi,” referring to prominent Arab-Israeli Knesset member Ahmed Tibi and his Joint List party.

For their part, Blue and White have run a defensive and at times incoherent campaign. Attempts to woo “soft” right-wing voters have muddied their overall message, with the main beneficiaries likely to be the left-wing Labor-Gesher-Meretz alliance. Only in the last week, once poll numbers confirmed Likud’s growing momentum, did Blue and White double down on their core message attacking Netanyahu directly. “It’s either Blue and White or Erdogan,” they now emphasise, alluding to Turkish President Erdogan and his destruction of Turkish democracy (something they claim Netanyahu will do if victorious).

The key question is whether any of these messages will sway enough voters to shift sides or, at the very least, motivate their base of supporters to go to the polls – many of whom have grown disenchanted with the continued stalemate. With the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties pledging continued loyalty to Netanyahu regardless of the outcome, even at the risk of a fourth election, Blue and White’s best hope may lie with increased Arab-Israeli turnout.

As in the previous two elections, the potential “kingmaker” for any coalition government will likely remain Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu party. Lieberman has come out bluntly against Netanyahu, saying the long-serving premier has “reached the end of his road” and cannot remain in office. Yet Lieberman has also said he will refuse to serve in any government with the ultra-Orthodox or a government dependent on Arab-Israeli support, further limiting any possible clear result for either side – including a temporary minority government helmed by Gantz.

For good measure Liberman has also promised that there will not be a fourth election. Is a surprise in the offing, or will the deadlock continue? After 2 March most Israelis are hoping for the former while fully expecting the latter.