Poll finds Tuesday’s Jerusalem mayoral race close

Rabbi Ovadia’s daughter campaigns against Shas

ELECTION POSTERS are displayed in Jerusalem in May, 2018. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
ELECTION POSTERS are displayed in Jerusalem in May, 2018.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Tuesday’s election for mayor of Jerusalem will come down to the wire and be very close, according to the last poll legally permitted before the election, which was broadcast Friday on the Galei Israel radio station.
The poll, taken by Shvakim Panorama, predicted that city councilmen Ofer Berkovitch and Moshe Lion would win 30.7% and 29.8% of the vote, which would set up a November 13 run-off race between the two that Lion would win 46.1% to 37.4%.
Jerusalem Affairs Minister Ze’ev Elkin would receive 23.6% of the vote according to the poll, deputy mayor Yossi Daitch 11.4% and former city attorney Avi Salman 0.4%.
If Daitch would quit the race and back Elkin, it could change the race dramatically. In a second-round vote between Berkovitch and Elkin, Elkin would beat Berkovitch by a wider margin than Lion would. But Daitch’s spokeswoman said he is staying in the race.
“We are feeling the love from all sectors,” she said. “Yossi Daitch will make it to the second round Tuesday and win the election.”
Meanwhile, in Beit Shemesh, mayoral candidate Aliza Bloch hosted a rally Saturday night in which she was endorsed by Haredi Women’s College founder Adina Bar-Shalom.
Bar-Shalom is the daughter of the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who is the spiritual mentor of Shas as well as of incumbent Beit Shemesh mayor Moshe Abutbul.