Method
The first polls after the lists closed
Five polls came out on 9 September, the day after candidate lists closed. The page is back to calling the blocs close, with 55 seats for the opposition bloc, 53 for the Netanyahu bloc and 12 for the Arab parties, and nearly all of the change is one small list getting its four seats back.
Five polls were published on 9 September, the day after candidate lists closed. They are the first polls this forecast has read that were taken after the deadline.
Five polls
Seats for each bloc, in the order Netanyahu bloc, opposition bloc, Arab parties:
- Channel 12 (Midgam): 52, 57 and 11
- Channel 13: 53, 53 and 14
- Kan 11 (Kantar): 52, 52 and 12, plus 4 for The Reservists-New Economic Party, which is in neither bloc
- Walla (Lazar): 51, 57 and 12
- i24 News (Direct Polls): 60, 48 and 12
They disagree by a lot — from a 12-seat lead for the Netanyahu bloc to a 6-seat lead for the opposition — but on average they put the two larger blocs less than a seat apart, with about 12 for the Arab parties. The five, as this site reads them, match what was reported when they were published.
Back to close
Yesterday the headline at the top of this page said the opposition bloc led, with about 57 seats to the Netanyahu bloc’s 51 and the Arab parties’ 12. Today it says the two larger blocs are close, at about 55 and 53, with 12 for the Arab parties.
Nearly all of that is one list. Amcha Israel, Ofer Winter’s list, won 4 seats in four of the five polls and 5 in the other. Its chance of winning at least 4 seats — the fewest a list can win once it passes the threshold — rose from 48.0% to 51.4%.
That is still close to a coin toss. But the table on this page gives a list its seats only when that chance is better than even, so Amcha Israel went from 0 to 4 seats, all of them in the Netanyahu bloc.
Those four seats had to come from somewhere. Yesterday, with Amcha Israel off the table, they had been shared out among the largest lists; today Likud, Together and The Democrats each give one back. Shas is also down one, and that comes from the polls: all five put it at 7. The Netanyahu bloc is up two, from 51 to 53, and the opposition down two, from 57 to 55.
Underneath, the forecast barely moved. The Netanyahu bloc reaches 61 seats in 3.8% of simulations, from 3.6%, and the opposition in 6.0%, from 7.0%. The opposition comes out the larger of the two in 55.3%, from 57.7%. The headline moved because Amcha Israel sits on the line, and it may move back.
A list the polls have stopped asking about
Unity did not file, and none of the five new polls included it. Blue and White did file, and was below the threshold in all five.
Unity is still in this forecast, with a chance of about 30 in 100 of winning seats, because older polls the model still reads include it — 18 of them, the latest taken on 4 September. The five new polls that leave it out did not move that figure. Taking out a list that did not file is a change to the model, and it is not in this update.
One poll not counted yet
Channel 14 also published a poll on 9 September, with 64 seats for the Netanyahu bloc, 44 for the opposition and 12 for the Arab parties. None of the sources this site reads had it when they were checked this morning, so it is not in today’s numbers. It leans further toward the Netanyahu bloc than any of the five above, and it will be counted when the sources add it.
The rest
The opposition bloc and the Arab parties reach 61 between them in 90.1% of simulations, from 90.6%. That is arithmetic about seats and nothing more: those seats belong to lists that do not act as one, and no coalition is modelled here.
Yashar wins more seats than Likud in 56.1% of simulations, Likud more than Yashar in 35.8%, and they tie in 8.1%.
Religious Zionism is at 5 seats, and its chance of winning at least 4 is 72.5%, from 68.6%. It and Amcha Israel remain the two lists in the Netanyahu bloc still at real risk of missing the threshold.