Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud continued to weaken in a new Maariv poll published Thursday, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionist Party (RZP) crossed the electoral threshold for the first time in nearly six months.
The poll, conducted just before the coalition's bill to dissolve the Knesset passed its preliminary reading, found that the coalition bloc rose by two seats to 51, while the opposition bloc fell from a 61-seat majority to 59.
The Arab parties remained unchanged at 10 seats.
In addition to Likud’s continued slide, Shas also lost one seat this week, according to the poll. Despite that, the overall coalition bloc strengthened thanks to RZP.
Within the opposition bloc, both the Together Party and Yashar! weakened by one seat each. The Reservists Party, at 1.4%, Blue and White, at 1.5%, and Balad, at 1.5%, remained below the electoral threshold.
Poll tests possible opposition mergers
Maariv also examined three scenarios in which Together, Yashar!, and Yisrael Beytenu would run as a single joint list. In each scenario, a different party leader was placed at the head of the combined slate.
The strongest result for the three-party alliance came when former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot was placed at the top of the list. Under that scenario, the joint slate received 49 seats, the same total the three parties received when running separately.
The remaining parties recorded the same results as in the separate-party scenario. As a result, the bloc map remained unchanged, with the coalition at 51 seats, the opposition parties at 59, and the Arab parties holding 10 additional seats.
The poll also found that 49% of Israelis oppose the draft law the government is seeking to advance. Only 30% said they support the bill, while 21% said they did not know.
The survey was conducted by Lazar Research, headed by Dr. Menachem Lazar, in cooperation with Panel4All, on May 19–20 among 500 respondents, representing a sample of Israel’s adult population aged 18 and over, including Jews and Arabs. The maximum margin of error was 4.4%.