Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party is projected to win 26 seats in the Knesset, increasing by three since a poll conducted last week, despite the Likud party capturing headlines this week with its primaries.
The findings come from a poll conducted for Maariv by Lazar Research, headed by Dr. Menachem Lazar, in cooperation with the Panel4All online respondents panel.
The Likud dropped by one seat and stands at 20 seats. However, due to the strengthening of Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism, the coalition bloc rose by one seat and reached 49 seats.
Following Eisenkot’s rise, the opposition bloc continued to climb and received 60 seats, just one seat short of a 61-seat majority coalition. The Reservists Party (Zionist Home) received only 2.9% support and did not cross the electoral threshold, after a series of polls in which it received four seats.
Other parties that failed to cross the threshold include the new party headed by Ofer Winter, Unity headed by Gilad Erdan, the new economic party headed by Prof. Yaron Zelicha, and Blue and White headed by Benny Gantz. Together, these parties are currently “wasting” the votes of 8.3% of all voters, equivalent to around 10 Knesset seats.
Arab parties to receive 11 seats after Hadash-Ta'al-Balad merger
The poll was conducted shortly before the announcement of the merger between Hadash-Ta’al and Balad. However, Hadash-Ta’al gained one seat this week, rising to six, and together with Ra’am’s five seats, the Arab parties receive 11 seats in the current poll.
The latest poll results indicated that the complete Knesset composition would be as follows:
Yashar: 26
Likud: 20
B'Yachad: 14
Yisrael Beytenu: 10
Democrats: 10
Otzma Yehudit: 9
United Torah Judaism: 8
Shas: 7
Hadash-Ta'al: 6
Ra'am: 5
Religious Zionist Party: 5
Eisenkot favored as PM over Netanyahu
Eisenkot also widened his lead over Netanyahu in the question of suitability for prime minister, reaching a record gap of 14 percentage points. The former IDF chief of staff received 52% support compared with 38% for Netanyahu. The gap in favor of Bennett (45% compared with 41% for Netanyahu) was similar to the previous poll, as was Netanyahu’s slight advantage over Avigdor Liberman (42% compared with 39%, respectively).
The poll also found that coalition voters are more likely to oppose (40%) than support (34%) Netanyahu reserving a spot on the Likud list for his son, Yair Netanyahu, in the Knesset elections. Another 26% have no opinion on the matter.
Among Likud voters, the picture is reversed: 49% support such a move, compared with 34% who oppose it and 17% who have no opinion.
Another concerning finding: Half of Israelis (50%) fear a situation in which the losing side in the Knesset elections refuses to accept the results. Some 38% do not fear this scenario, while 12% do not know.
The poll was conducted on August 19-20, 2026. A total of 3,916 people were invited to participate, and 501 respondents answered (13%), representing a representative sample of Israel’s adult population aged 18 and over, Jews and Arabs. The maximum sampling error in this poll is 4.4%.