Five polls, and a third coin

The front of this page now reads Opposition bloc leads with about 55 seats, Netanyahu bloc with 53, and Arab parties with 12, from 14 polls. Yesterday evening it read 57, 51 and 12, from 9. Five polls arrived, and most of the movement is one list crossing the line the table is printed on.

What arrived

Five polls, fielded between 30 August and 2 September, and both sources carry every one of them.

• Filber for Channel 14, 30 August, sample 666: Likud 31, Yashar 24, Shas 10, the Democrats 8, Otzma Yehudit 7, United Torah Judaism 7, Yisrael Beiteinu 7, the Joint List 7, Together 6, Ra’am 5, Religious Zionism 4, Amcha Israel 4. Blocs 63, 45 and 12.
• Maagar Mohot for Channel 16, 2 September, sample 552: Yashar 20, Likud 19, Together 18, the Democrats 10, Otzma Yehudit 9, Shas 9, United Torah Judaism 7, Yisrael Beiteinu 7, the Joint List 7, Religious Zionism 5, Amcha Israel 5, Ra’am 4. Blocs 54, 55 and 11.
• Channel 13, 2 September, sample 940, filed by one source as Panel Project HaMidgam and by the other as HaMadad, and counted once: Yashar 22, Likud 21, Together 12, the Democrats 11, the Joint List 9, United Torah Judaism 8, Yisrael Beiteinu 8, Otzma Yehudit 7, Shas 7, Religious Zionism 6, Ra’am 5, Amcha Israel 4. Blocs 53, 53 and 14.
• Direct Polls for i24 News, 2 September, sample 522: Likud 27, Yashar 23, the Democrats 10, Together 9, United Torah Judaism 8, Yisrael Beiteinu 8, Otzma Yehudit 7, Shas 7, the Joint List 7, Religious Zionism 6, Ra’am 5, Amcha Israel 5. That is 122 seats, which is what the pollster published and what both sources record; the model scales the poll to 120 before it reads it. Blocs 60, 50 and 12, of 122.
• Panels Politics, Lazar’s firm, for Walla, 2 September, sample 500: Yashar 24, Likud 22, Together 15, the Democrats 10, Yisrael Beiteinu 9, United Torah Judaism 8, the Joint List 8, Otzma Yehudit 7, Shas 7, Religious Zionism 5, Ra’am 5. Amcha Israel at 2.3%, below the line. Blocs 49, 58 and 13.

The window now holds 14 polls, all of them since Amcha Israel’s entry on 25 August, for the reason Nine polls, not sixty-nine gave yesterday: a new list’s first seated poll is where the model starts reading.

Religious Zionism, now with Zehut

On 1 September the Religious Zionist Party and Zehut agreed to run as a technical bloc, and both sources changed their label for the column the next day. Zehut has not been polled on its own this cycle — its last appearance was a 1.5% line in the small print of a Maagar Mohot poll on 10 August — so the joint figure is filed under Religious Zionism, where every earlier reading of the list already is. One electorate, one line.

What moved is not the name. All five new polls seat the list, on 4, 5, 6, 6 and 5. Yesterday the model read Religious Zionism as a list averaging 1.9 seats with a 33% chance of 4 or more and a 58% chance of nothing. Today it averages 3.3, with a 50% chance of 4 or more and a 33% chance of nothing. The median went from 0 to 4, and a median of 4 is one the table prints.

That is the third coin in three days. Two coin tosses on 2 September was about Amcha Israel and Zionist Home sitting at 50.8% and 50.5%; this list is seated on 50.1%, which is as close to the edge as a list can be printed from. If the next poll puts it under the line, the table will take the 4 seats back and hand the leftovers to the largest lists, and the simulations will have moved by a fraction of a seat.

The ledger

The table this page prints is one rule: a list takes its median, a median below 4 becomes nothing, and the seats left over go to the largest lists, one each. Yesterday the medians added to 117 and three seats went to Yashar, Likud and Together. Today they add to 119 and one goes to Yashar.

• Netanyahu bloc: +4 from Religious Zionism, −1 as Amcha Israel’s median goes from 5 to 4, −1 as Likud’s extra seat goes back. Net +2, from 51 to 53.
• Opposition: −1 as Yashar’s median goes from 24 to 23, −1 as Together’s extra seat goes back. Net −2, from 57 to 55.
• Arab parties: 12, unchanged.

What the simulations say

The bloc medians are 53, 55 and 12, from 52, 56 and 12. The means moved from 51.6 to 52.8 for the Netanyahu bloc and from 55.9 to 54.7 for the opposition. The opposition bloc finishes ahead of the Netanyahu bloc in 58% of simulations, from 70% yesterday; the Netanyahu bloc is ahead in 37%, from 26%; they are level in 5%.

The headline says “leads” only when a bloc is the largest in three draws in five, counting a tie as half. The opposition is at 60.4%. That clears the rule by less than half a point, and it should be read that way: the rule was met, and one more poll like Filber’s would unmeet it.

The Netanyahu bloc’s chance of 61 went from 2.4% to 3.8% and the opposition’s from 14.4% to 9.1%. The opposition and the Arab parties reach 61 together in 93% of simulations, from 96%. That is arithmetic and nothing more: six lists that do not act as one, and nothing here says they would.

The top

Yashar finishes as the largest list in 52% of simulations, from 59%, and Likud in 41%, from 33%; they are level in 7%. The means are 22.9 and 22.2. Three of the five new polls have Yashar ahead, Filber and Direct Polls have Likud ahead by 7 and by 4, and the table prints them at 24 and 22.

Amcha Israel is read beside Religious Zionism every round, and this round they moved in opposite directions. Four of the five polls seat Amcha Israel, on 4, 5, 4 and 5; Lazar has it at 2.3%. Its chance of 4 or more went from 78% to 63% and its chance of nothing from 11% to 16%. The table prints it at 4, from 5.