The Likud is on a downward trend, while Yamina continues to grow, according to a survey conducted by Mano Geva and published on Sunday night. The Likud and Yamina are the two largest parties, according to the survey, with Yesh Atid dropping slightly.
On the question of eligibility for prime minister, Bennett receives the highest percentage compared to Lapid and Gantz. Also, most of the Israeli public believes that the normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirate is Netanyahu’s great achievement – just not great enough to bring up his support.
Had the election been held today, the leading party would still have been the Likud led by Benjamin Netanyahu, but the party continues to weaken, with only 30 seats (compared to 36 seats in the Knesset today).
Yamina continues to strengthen, for the first time becoming the second largest party with 18 seats (compared to only 6 seats today – a meteoric rise due mostly to the combination of Netanyahu’s failure to beat the pandemic and the economic crisis, juxtaposed with Naftali Bennett’s remarkable PR success in leading an independent effort to defeat the coronavirus, following a remarkable stint as defense minister).
Yesh Atid is slightly weakened and stands at 16 seats (compared to the 17 seats it has in the Knesset today); the Joint Arab List maintains its strength of 15 seats; Blue&White with 12 (compared to 14 today); United Torah Judaism and Avigdor liberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu with 8 each (7 each today); Shas receives 7 seats (down from 9 today); and Meretz gets 6 (only 3 in the current Knesset due to the betrayal of the Labor Party – which has been eliminated from the political map in every single recent survey).
On the question of suitability for prime minister, when respondents were asked to choose between Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, Netanyahu received 43%, compared with 16% for Gantz. When the comparison was with opposition leader Yair Lapid, Netanyahu rose to 46% – compared to 22% for Lapid. Yamina chairman Bennett received the highest score, with 24% preferring him and 39% going for Netanyahu.
Regarding the normalization agreement signed with the United Arab Emirates, respondents were asked what they thought of the peace agreement which came at the expense of the declaration of Israeli sovereignty in the settlements: 63% of respondents said this was an achievement of the Prime Minister – compared to 13% who believe that this was a failure.
Date of collection of the survey’s data: 16/08/2020; population: a representative sample of the entire population in Israel aged 18 and over; actual number of respondents: 509; number of participants: 3,422; maximum sampling error: +-4.4%.