Four seats outside the blocs

The top of the forecast page now reads Netanyahu bloc is slightly ahead with about 53 seats, Opposition bloc with 51, and Arab parties with 12. On 13 October it read 55, 52 and 13. The three figures now come to 116 rather than 120: the other 4 seats are in the table under The Reservists-New Economic Party, a list in neither bloc.

The word is the same, with less room than before. The Netanyahu bloc comes out the larger of the two in 60.9% of simulations, counting a tie as half to each, from 63.6%. “Slightly ahead” runs from 60% to 75%; below 60% the page calls the blocs close.

Two polls

Two polls are new since 13 October:

• Walla (Panels Politics), 12 October: 49 seats for the Netanyahu bloc, 54 for the opposition and 13 for the Arab parties, plus 4 for The Reservists-New Economic Party
• Channel 16 (Maagar Mohot), 13 October: 52, 50 and 13, plus 5 for The Reservists-New Economic Party

One puts the opposition ahead and one the Netanyahu bloc. Together they carry 11.2% of the weight in today’s average, and the window now holds 71 polls, from 69.

Four seats

The Reservists-New Economic Party won seats in both polls, and in all five polls fielded from 11 October on. Its chance of winning seats in the simulations rose from 48 in 100 to 53. The table seats a list that wins seats in at least half the simulations, so it now gives this one 4 seats, its size in the simulations that seat it.

Those seats come out of the three blocs. The table shares the 120 seats in proportion: each bloc by the seats it is expected to win, and a list in neither bloc, once the table seats it, by its size when it is in. Had the Reservists stayed under the line, the same simulations would give the blocs 54, 53 and 13. With them in, the blocs have 53, 51 and 12.

The simulations themselves moved little. The Netanyahu bloc’s average fell by about a third of a seat; the opposition bloc’s and the Arab parties’ barely changed. Without the Reservists, that third of a seat would have been enough to send back the seat that changed sides in the rounding on 13 October. With them, the Arab parties’ figure falls from 13 to 12 although their average rose slightly: their share of the 120 comes to between 12 and 13, and of the 2 seats left after the whole ones, one went to the Reservists and the other to the Netanyahu bloc, whose remainder was larger by about a tenth of a seat.

Close to the line

The 60.9% is less than a point above the line at which the page’s word would change from “slightly ahead” to “close”. The Reservists entering the table did not move it: that figure compares the two blocs simulation by simulation, and the list was already winning seats in about half of them. What moved it is the polls. Walla’s has the opposition five seats ahead and Channel 16’s has the Netanyahu bloc two ahead.

The rest

Neither bloc is near a majority. The Netanyahu bloc reaches 61 seats in 1.9% of simulations, from 2.5%, and the opposition in 1.0%, from 0.9%. The opposition bloc and the Arab parties reach 61 between them in 83.8%, from 82.7%. 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.

Amcha Israel won 4 seats in Channel 16’s poll and fell below the threshold in Walla’s, at 2.8%. Its chance of winning seats fell from 61 in 100 to 59, so the table keeps its 4 seats, in the Netanyahu bloc.

The table has Yashar with 22 seats and Likud with 21, from 23 and 22. In the simulations Yashar wins more seats in 48.9%, Likud in 40.8%, and they tie in 10.3%.