Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party hits 21 seats in Channel 1 poll

The Zionist Union would win 15 seats, the Joint Arab List 13, Bayit Yehudi 12, Yisrael Beytenu eight, Shas and UTJ seven, and Kulanu and Meretz 6.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Updated: MARCH 10, 2016 00:02
Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid at the Knesset (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid at the Knesset
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Yesh Atid has a bright future ahead, according to a poll taken for Channel 1 that was broadcast Wednesday night.
The poll found that if elections would be held now, former finance minister Yair Lapid’s party would nearly double its support from 11 seats to 21, just four mandates less than Likud, which would fall from 30 seats to 25.
The Zionist Union would win 15 seats, the Joint Arab List 13, Bayit Yehudi 12, Yisrael Beytenu eight, Shas and UTJ seven, and Kulanu and Meretz 6.
The poll indicated that right-wing voters had shifted from supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud to its satellite parties – Bayit Yehudi, which rose four seats from its current eight, and Yisrael Beytenu, which rose from six seats to eight.
Yesh Atid gained support from those who voted last year for the Zionist Union, which fell nine seats from its current 24, and Kulanu, which the poll predicted would lose four seats from its current 10.
Asked who is most fit to be prime minister, 20 percent said they did not know. Netanyahu led with 26%, followed by Lapid with 11%, Zionist Union chairman Isaac Herzog nine percent, Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman eight percent, former IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi seven percent, Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett five percent and former Likud minister Gideon Sa’ar four percent.
There was strong support for limiting the terms of prime ministers to two, with 58% in favor, 31% against, and 11% saying they did not know.
Seventy-three percent of respondents were unsatisfied with Netanyahu’s handling of the security situation, 23% are satisfied, and the rest did not answer or said they did not know.
The poll was taken by pollster Stella Karayof of the TNC Institute among 525 people representing a statistical sample of the Israeli population.