Likud receives boost in polls from party primary, overtakes Labor

Labor had led in the polls since it merged with Hatnua.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Labor leader Isaac Herzog and Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni take part in a joint news conference in Tel Aviv, December 10 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Labor leader Isaac Herzog and Hatnua leader Tzipi Livni take part in a joint news conference in Tel Aviv, December 10
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud has retaken the lead over Labor, receiving a boost from last week’s party primary, according to polls taken in recent days.
Labor had led in the polls since it merged with Hatnua.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog’s party will try to regain the lead by receiving a similar boost from Labor’s primary next Tuesday.
A TNS Teleseker poll in Friday’s Maariv Sof Hashavua, the Hebrew sister newspaper of The Jerusalem Post, predicted the Likud would win 25 Knesset seats and Labor 24. Polls taken since the primary by Panels Research, which took other recent polls for Maariv Sof Hashavua and the Post, also found the Likud had passed Labor by one seat.
The Likud’s 25 seats puts the party on the cusp of winning the 26 necessary for Deputy Transportation, Science and Technology Minister Tzipi Hotovely to remain in the Knesset.
After Hotovely lost the 20th slot on the Likud list to former minister Avi Dichter by some 60 votes, she appealed the results. The 21st through 25th slots are reserved for candidates representing regions and minorities.
The TNS Teleseker poll predicted 15 seats for Bayit Yehudi, 11 for Arab parties, 10 for Koolanu, nine for Yesh Atid, eight for United Torah Judaism, and six each for Yisrael Beytenu, Shas and Meretz.
Former Shas chairman Eli Yishai’s Yahad Ha’am Itanu did not pass the electoral threshold.
When asked who is most fit to be prime minister, 50.2 percent said Netanyahu, 25.2% said Herzog and 24.7% said they did not know or none of the above.
The poll asked respondents who is to blame for the housing crisis, because in an interview with Channel 2 on Tuesday, Netanyahu blamed former prime minister Ehud Olmert and former finance minister Yair Lapid. The survey found that 37.3% blame Netanyahu, 24.1% Lapid, 13.8% Olmert, and 24.7% said none of the above or they did not know.
The poll of 510 respondents representing a statistical sample of the adult population had an error margin of +-4.3%.