Israeli Election Poll Shows Labor Rallying, Tel Aviv Mayor’s New Party Fizzling Out

A public opinion poll released by Channel 12 News on Tuesday had the Labor Party and its new chairwoman, Merav Michaeli, getting enough votes to enter the Knesset and Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai’s The Israelis party failing to do so – a reversal of each party’s situation in the channel’s previous poll a week ago.

Labor received four seats in the poll, the minimum possible number for parties in the Knesset because of the required vote threshold.

The poll also had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party remaining the largest in the Knesset, with 29 seats, and opposition leader Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid getting 16 seats. New Hope, the party formed by former Likud lawmaker Gideon Sa’ar, would get 15 seats in an election, according to the poll.

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The rest of the parties would be the right-wing, pro-settler Yamina, with 14 seats; the Joint List, with 10 seats; United Torah Judaism and Shas, with eight seats each; Yisrael Beiteinu, with seven seats; Meretz, with five seats; and Kahol Lavan, with four seats.

In the poll, the bloc of parties whose leaders have not vowed they would not enter a government with Netanyahu after the March election – Likud, Yamina, Shas, and UTJ – would win 59 seats, two short of a majority.