Smith conducted a poll that was published by Globes on Dec 4 2014.
Smith also conducted a scenario poll with Livni Party joining Labor.
Current Knesset seats in [brackets]
23 [18] Likud
16 [12] Bayit Yehudi
15 [15] Labor
10 [19] Yesh Atid
10 [13] Yisrael Beitenu
10 [–] New Kachlon Party
09 [11] Shas
07 [07] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
07 [06] Meretz
05 [04] Hadash
03 [04] Ra’am-Ta’al
03 [03] Balad
02 [06] Movement
00 [02] Kadima
75 [61] Right-Religious (Possible BB coalition)
45 [59] Center-Left-Arab (Anti-BB coalition)
Scenario Poll:
Current Knesset seats in [brackets]
24 [21] Labor+Livni (Movement)
22 [18] Likud
16 [12] Bayit Yehudi
10 [13] Yisrael Beitenu
09 [11] Shas
09 [–] New Kachlon Party
07 [19] Yesh Atid
07 [07] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
05 [06] Meretz
05 [04] Hadash
03 [04] Ra’am-Ta’al
03 [03] Balad
00 [02] Kadima
73 [61] Right-Religious (Possible BB coalition)
47 [59] Center-Left-Arab (Anti-BB coalition)
This poll gives a feeling of a poll on behalf of Livni, and perhaps Smith is the pollster for Livni. The graphic on Globes suggests that the two mandates that it gives Livni is borderline to passing the threshold, but the threshold is 3.25%, which comes out to 3.9 mandates, very far from 2 mandates. Also Smith is quite generous to give her the 2 mandates from the 120 total even though the actual implication of such a result is that she won’t be in the Knesset and the two mandates would be divided among other parties. This poll comes at a time when Livni is said tobe considering merging either with Labor or Yesh Atid. Labor is mentioned as the more serious possibility even though there she would need to convince the relevant party committees to allow her to merge. (Yesh Atid has no such barriers, it depends on the say of Yair Lapid alone). This poll has the potential to serve as supporting argument for Livni to the Labor party committees. Israeli pollsters don’t publish which parties they work with, even though there are more parties than pollsters so it is pretty obvious that each pollster has one if not more parties as clients. We therefore can’t know if Smith is indeed Livni/Movement’s pollster. But given that the poll favors Livni so much and coming at a time when such a poll published publicly would serve Livni’s political interests, this poll should be taken with more than a grain of salt. It may even have been paid for in part by Livni/Movement. Incidentally, from the graphic on Globes it appears that the poll was conducted Dec 3.
According to Political Blogger Tal Schneider, Rafi Smith admitted to being the pollster for the Labor party as well as other parties (which he did not name).
Her hebrew post here – http://www.talschneider.com/2014/12/05/globespoll2014
That is true.
It should be noted that most of the 14 parties have hired the 8 polling companies for private polling.
That doesn’t mean that when Globes or a different newspaper/radio/TV organization asks for a poll that these respected pollsters choose to slant the results.
Naturally, and there are more than the 14. Probably Yishai, Ariel/Tekuma, Amsalam, Ben Ari, have also commissioned polls already, and there will be more parties. There isn’t much to do about it since we are a small country and there are not enough polling firms. In this case, though, we can see Smith/Globes has given the Labor party the higher end of the results. In all its recent polls, Labor polled at 14-15 while other polls show Labor getting anywhere between 12-15, so Smith is giving Labor high results – not exceptionally high, but still high. Is it slanting? It can be as simple as trying to use weighting/polling procedures that favor their clients (for example, Yahadut might ask that regular phone lines be polled more aggressively, Labor might ask to properly weigh SMS/cellular) and using the same procedures/formulas for public polls as they do for private polls.
I know many parties that actually hire polling companies that have them lower so they can have a conservative outlook.
And if the left was really smart they would draft Ron Huldai as standard bearer of a united front…and it looks like Bennett may have (barring another full blown spate of terrorism) found his ceiling at 16-17. And we are only at day 2…
In the second scenario Avoda/Livni get 24 MK´s and the first position together, seven more than separated.
In the Panels/Knesset Channel poll of one week ago the 73% of the people said that probably or possibly would vote for left joint ticket (Avoda/Livni/Yesh Atid/Meretz) and 62% of the people that say that probably or possibly would vote for a right joint ticket (Likud, BY, Yisrael Beitenu).
The polls show that most voters do not want a fourth term of Bibi (although still he is the first preference), and most think that is responsible for the collapse of the coalition.
It is clear that the chances of the center-left passes through the union of the center-left parties.