Midgam conducted a poll of 500 people that was broadcast by Channel 2 on Aug 7 2014.
Current Knesset seats in [brackets]
23 [19] Likud
15 [12] Bayit Yehudi
14 [15] Labor
12 [11] Yisrael Beitenu
10 [19] Yesh Atid
08 [11] Shas
07 [07] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
07 [07] Ra’am-Ta’al and Balad
07 [–] Kachalon
06 [06] Meretz
06 [06] Movement
05 [04] Hadash
00 [02] Kadima
72 [61] Right-Religious-Kachalon
48 [59] Center-Left-Arab
Note: This poll was conducted according to the new 3.25% threshold. Currently Ra’am-Ta’al and Balad are separate factions.
Additional Questions:
Who is most fit to serve as Prime Minister?
38% Netanyahu, 11% Bennett, 9% Liberman, 9% Herzog, 8% Livni, 3% Kachalon, 3% Lapid
Are you pleased with Netanyahu’s conduct of war?
58% Yes, 37% No
Knesset Jeremy Analysis: The Netanyahu-Liberman-Bennett trio captures 50 seats in this poll. The three, along with Herzog are among the top 4 parties and the top 4 Prime Minister candidates. For now, the right seems to have clearly benefited from the war.
Jeremy's Knesset Insider 
1. interesting that still all the right-wing parties gain
2. Kachalon gets only 7 seats (as he is personally perceived as domestic policy guy)
3. Ra’am-Ta’al and Balad polled togehter – nothing says that they will run as one or two different
parties – Question: if they ran as two different, would one or both fall out?
4. Meretz gets their same 6 MK:s – interesting.
1 – It is indeed surprising that we are supposedly after the ‘war time’ and all three right parties are up by a combined 8 seats.
2 – The Kachalon surge will happen after Lapid drops, not before. It is very likely that in this poll Kachalon’s seven seats are mostly from Lapid’s nine seat drop.
3 – I don’t know if they do run together. I also don’t know if Ta’al runs with Ra’am. Ta’al has run in the past with both Balad & Hadash. Both Ta’al & Balad will need to run with either Hadash or Ra’am to have a shot of passing new threshold. Mada (part of Raam) could move to form a different alliance. Hadash’s 1 & 2 are not expected to run for re-election. Polling of these parties will be very complicated until we see the final realignment, which might only be 45 days before election.
4 – I believe this is a low for Meretz in recent months. They did better during the war itself. It is possible they are just on the lower side of the margin of error and that they are really closer to 8 & Livni is closer to 4.
I did not know that Ra’am and Ta’al are two different parties. Which one is bigger?
So you think that Hadash could survive alone? And also Ra’am?
Do you think that Yesh Atid can (actually will) fall much lower than 9-10 seats? I guess the question is how big the party’s most loyal group of voters is.
About Labor, I think it is realistic to assume that the party will rise above 15 seats; maybe somewhere around 19 seats.
MK Tibi leads Ta’al. They were not able to make the Knesset by themselves. Ta’al had an alliance with Balad for 1999 elections, an alliance with Hadash for 2003 elections and was ran with with Ra’am during 2006, 2009 and 2013 elections. #2 of Ta’al list has never entered Knesset.
Ra’am is made up of smaller Arab parties, among them Mada which did not enter the current Knesset, in English you would translate it to United Arab List.
If Hadash’s #1 & #2 resign from Knesset, and Jewish Hadash MK Dov Khenin is not welcome on a joint Arab list – well it is not very clear what will happen with Hadash.
New parties do not enjoy loyal followings. Yesh Atid jumped from 0 to 19, that means they can just as easily jump from 19 to 0. I’ll remind you that Kadima was largest party in 2009 with 28 seats and is smallest party following 2013 election with 2 seats. Shinui is another recent example of 15 seats to 0.
I think the Labor Knesset list primary will determine if Labor gains or loses.
Re Hadash- is that public, that they are stepping down?
Yeah, they have talked about it.
Do you think any polls will come out reflecting the possibility of Danon splitting off a significant chunk of Likud? Based on what I’m hearing about cabinet ministers fuming about potential capitulations, I wouldn’t be surprised if Danon attempts to do this.
Of course, I also acknowledge that the problem with such a split is that it would make him redundant with Bayit Yehudi. So then we have the question of whether BY should become BY+Danon.
I don’t think the Likud Central Committee Chairman would split from Likud. I don’t know Danon’s plans, but I would guess they would be to unseat Netanyahu in the Likud over splitting off. Netanyahu is going to have a number of challengers this time, including #2 Gidon Saar and Moshe Feiglin.
I also do not think that Danon would split the Likud, he is after all a Likudnik and nationalist and Likud, in its core (!), is a nationalistic movement (supporting the annexation of all the Land of Israel).
I guess the question is if Netanyahu is going to act like Sharon did and split the party. But somehow I get the feeling that he is not going to do that (has not he been “right-wing” kind of all his life when on the other hand Sharon had leftist roots?). At least I would hope that Bibi would follow the will of Likud. But who knows, right?
About challengers to Netanyahu, I do not know who would have a better chance to beat him in the leadership contest. I guess, ashistory may tell, that Feiglin would not on his own win but maybe if there were enough other “more establlishment” candidates sharing the “moderate” vote with Bibi. And it is impossible to tell who of Danon or Saar have better chance to win the leadership contest. We will just have to wait. Thus there seriously exist the chance that Netanyahu does not run again and instead supports another candidate, like Steinitz or?
We did look at polls of Netanyahu breakaway party and Likud without Netanyahu. Not sure that works out so well for BB.
I think if it is a head-to-head Netanyahu-Sa’ar challenge among Likud voters – Sa’ar has a good chance. I think there will be other candidates like Feiglin, maybe Danon, which could force a second round or help BB win with a little over 40% of vote. Steinitz, Hanegbi and Yaalong all expect BB to back them as his successor.
Yes the poll with Likud and BB-party did not give Bibi really any significant number of Likud seats (was it 2 or 3?); was it not so that actually Yisrael Beiteinu, Yesh Atid and Labor lost most on it? Not really guaranteed that these voters would go to BB-party (of course depending on the make-up of the list), especially if he sticks to his current agenda (whatever it then is…)
I think if you look at it again BB numbers would still pull away from Liberman & Lapid. Although that is just a hunch. Hypothetical polls are not an exact science.
that was what i tried to say that Lapid, Lieberman and possible Herzog looses on this.
and yes, hypotetical polls are bad – like all the polls with eg. kachalon.