Knesset Jeremy’s Weekly Average – The Israeli Poll of Polls
Knesset Jeremy Weekly Average #14 (week of March 1-7 2015) of 12 polls from 8 leading polling companies (3 Panels, 2 Teleseker, 2 Midgam, 1 Smith, 1 Dialog, 1 Maagar Mochot, 1 New Wave, 1 Geocartography, 0 Sarid & TRI.
(Last Week in brackets), current Knesset seats in [brackets]
1st 23.50 (23.66) [20] Zionist Union (Labor+Livni)
2nd 22.83 (23.08) [18] Likud
3rd 12.58 (12.41) [11] The Joint (Arab) List
4th 12.30 (11.91) [20] Yesh Atid
5th 11.91 (12.00) [11] Bayit Yehudi
6th 08.25 (08.16) [02] Koolanu (Kahlon+Kadima)
7th 06.83 (06.75) [10] Shas
8th 06.66 (06.91) [07] Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
9th 05.58 (05.66) [13] Yisrael Beitenu
10th 05.33 (05.00) [06] Meretz
11th 04.16 (04.41) [02] Yachad (Yishai+Chetboun+Marzel)
66.25 (67.08) [63] Right-Religious-Kahlon (Parties that have not ruled out nominating a Netanyahu coalition)
53.75 (52.91) [57] Center-Left-Arab (Parties that have ruled out nominating a Netanyahu coalition)
Changes: Yesh Atid passes Bayit Yehudi for fourth place and Shas replaces UTJ for seventh place.
Largest Gains: Yesh Atid gained 0.39 of a seat; Meretz gained 0.33 of a seat and The Joint (Arab) List gained 0.17.
Biggest Losses: Likud, UTJ and Yachad all dropped 0.25 of a seat.
Swing: Less than 1.1 seat change across the board from last week.
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The 3-phase process to the Prime Minister House: Phase 1 – Elections (seats). Phase 2 – President’s Residence (nomination). Phase 3 – Knesset vote (61 MKs needed).
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Knesset Jeremy Analysis – Week 14:
1 – The Speech, The Debate and Purim.
The election is ten days away. Yet, it seems like a majority of Israelis concentrated on the Jewish holiday of Purim during a week that was dominated by headlines and analysis from the previous weekend’s debate and Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. The overall swing was about 1.1 Knesset seats.
Likud lost a quarter of a seat this week, despite polling better in the second part of the week following Netanyahu’s Knesset speech, due to a poor showing in the beginning of the week ahead of the speech. Overall Likud had a high of 24 (3 polls) and a low of 21 (1 poll) for a 22.83 average compared to Zionist Union’s low of 22 and high of 24 for an average of 23.5. The best news for Netanyahu this week was Shas’s decision to join Yachad and Bayit Yehudi in endorsing Netanyahu for Phase 2.
Herzog is happy to see the parties that have ruled out nominating a Netanyahu coalition increase to 53.75 with two polls this week giving the bloc 56 seats. His bloc did suffer a setback when The Joint List announced they would not sign a voter exchange agreement with Meretz. Herzog who signed with Meretz was hoping to increase his bloc by cancelling the agreement to sign with Yesh Atid if The Joint List agreed to sign with Meretz. If The Joint List won’t sign a voter exchange agreement with Meretz, it will be interesting to see if they will be able to bring themselves to nominate Herzog for Phase 2. It is great news for his bloc that Meretz is up this week.
With the top two parties fighting for the largest list, the battle for the third largest list will be an interesting story-line to follow. The Joint List, Yesh Atid and Bayit Yehudi are all averaging within a half a seat of each other. Yesh Atid is the party with momentum and hasn’t been in single digits since Feb 15. Kulanu is still trying to figure out how to get out of single digits.
Shas enjoyed a bump after Deri’s endorsement of Netanyahu, receiving 7 and 8 seats in the last two polls released this week. There was a lot of pressure for Deri to support Netanyahu. A previous public poll showed that just 4% of Shas voters preferred Herzog to Netanyahu. Yachad was down to 4 seats in the last ten polls conducted this week. Yishai is expected to lose from Deri’s endorsement. 5 polls (Smith, Panels, Midgam, Dialog and New Wave) had UTJ at just 6 seats this week.
2 – Week 15 Preview: The Last Week of Polling
On Friday I will release the last Knesset Jeremy Weekly Average. This means Knesset Jeremy Weekly Average #15 will most likely be the last poll related post on Knesset Jeremy for this election cycle due to the Israeli law.
In the final Poll of Polls post I will post a prediction for the final results that will be based on the polls average, factions of seats lost votes to the 15 parties expected not to pass the threshold, vote-swap agreements and momentum. This will be based on pure science and math, no hunches or gut feelings. I can tell you ahead of time that it will be wrong, but it will be interesting to see how close (or far) it is from the final results.
In 2013 the KnessetJeremy Average predicted 8 of the 12 lists elected within 1 seat of the final election results.
Official Results (KJ AVG) Party
31 (35) Likud Beitenu
15 (18) Labor
12 (15) Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home/National Union)
19 (12) Yesh Atid
11 (11) Shas
6 (7) Movement
7 (6) Yahadut Hatorah/UTJ
6 (6) Meretz
4 (4) Hadash
4 (3) Ra’am-Ta’al
3 (3) Balad
2 (2) Kadima (Model predicted Kadima over 2 seats but under 2.4 seats)
For more analysis on the ‘Poll of Polls’ you can catch my weekly radio interview on Sundays with Gil Hoffman on Voice of Israel.com
Jeremy's Knesset Insider 
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Updated weekly graph of the Knesset Jeremy Poll of Polls.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d49cWZJMC3-5ZcaNh6MeVVg-EMdEPdRuaMZS3cPygeI
Steepest graph trends right now over the last 3-4 weeks are for Yesh Atid and Likud. But what you see is not what you get in Israeli polls. Remember the Pensioners List getting 7 MKs after all polls predicted 0?
Yesh Atid like centrist parties in general is a strong finisher; likud is historically weaker at the wire. Yahad may be in trouble as both Likud, BY has last minute sights on their voters and Marzel’s rants don’t help them. United List playing it smart with focus on crime in Arab communities – showing their practical pragmatic side which can increase Arab turnout. Kulanu giving mixed messages as Kahlon pledges loyalty to the right while Galant and others on the list talk left. Straddling confuses voters. Bennett in a fight for his political future.
Bibi’s speech indeed historic – so was the Edsel and the Hindenburg.
Edsel and Hindenberg. lol. Classic and true.
Other than the YA’s surprise at the last election, often attributed to Likud voters who were overconfident of success switching at the last moment for fun, what previous evidence do you have of centrist parties finishing strongly and Likud finishing weakly?
Much more productive if you directed your attention to the Shas conundrum , 4 on the first poll of the week and 9 on the last, and that on a few occasions for the first time polling above Kahlon. If you could resolve these discrepancies which are way above that for any other party, we can consider taking your rather forced left leaning scenarios more seriously.
I see Yishai sadly is ranting about more tapes on Arutz Sheva, who have blatantly been promoting his team for some time now. Not only is this line well past its sell by date, it smacks of desperation. What we learn from all this as a general point is that having a beard is no guarantee of good behaviour.
Judah: Arutz Sheva is also pushing that pseudo-Chareidi women’s party. I think that different reporters have their own agendas.
Jeremy:
“If The Joint List won’t sign a voter exchange agreement with Meretz, it will be interesting to see if they will be able to bring themselves to nominate Herzog for Phase 2.”
The voter exchange agreement with Meretez was not signed because Raam and Balad opposed it. Could be that Raam and Balad did not nominate Herzog for Phase 2, but Hadash and Taal did it.
Avi 2:
“likud is historically weaker at the wire.”
It´s true:
“Likud fears it may only win 18 seats in upcoming election: Source warns that party has picked up 10-30% fewer votes than predicted at start of all election campaigns since 1999.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.644711
Great work on the graph!
Seems to me every election cycle has a 7 seat block that goes entirely undetected.
Bennett needs to speak a lot this week.
He needs to get out the message that a vote for yesh atid is like a vote for meretz…hammer that over and over..Jewish home needs to take back some of the kahlon and yesh atid votes.
Also replay his message that only a strong Jewish home will keep the next government from the leftist tilt.
Even if he takes votes from likud…Herzog will be hard pressed to form a government.
If Bennett can have a miraculous week(taking votes from the center and right)…a realistic government could be..
Likud 20
Jewish home 17
Shas. 7
Yisriel beytunu 6
Yachad. 6
Utj. 6
Giving us 62…then we can take kahlon on our terms and even lapid if he wants to get off his high horse
That government with bibi as pm…but with Bennett calling a lot of the shots is what Israel needs…
Dash, Shinui, Pensioners, Yesh Atid, third way, (even Kadima though that was a Sharon thing). New parties in the center of the map have a way of drawing last minute support.
Always subtract one from Yachad for Marzal splitting off.
Note that last time UTJ was up one from the estimate.
The numbers might not look the best but I think Bibi will have an easier time forming the government. I agree with Judah about Kulanu. I know they are mostly in for economic reasons but they need to sign with someone. They could potentially be stealing voters from Bayit Yehudi and Likud becuase the voters think Kahlon will go with Netanyahu when in reality Kulanu will just as easily go to the left. Kahlon claims to be center-right but the only thing I hear them being right about is Judea & Samaria.
Two questions:
Is what I heard true – that the threshold is not actually 4 seats but 3.9?
Will YB’s “going Lapid” keep Bibi from being PM?
The threshold is 3.25%, which equals 4 seats.
.0325 * 120 = 3.9.
Since Lieberman is now against a coalition with the Haredim a coalition of Likud+BY+Kulanu+Shas+UTJ+Yachad = 61 seats.
I doubt that Lieberman wont join the coalition just because of Haredi parties being involved.
An interesting point on your comments, taking politics and religion out of the equation, Lieberman and Deri are good friends.
Crooks often are.
But does that include Marzel (who I thought was splitting off)?
Lieberman is talking like a big shot, head of a party with 13-15 seats. Wait til after the election, when he’s suddenly smaller than UTJ.
Question about phase 2. If neither candidate for PM has parties worth 61+ mandates nominating him, does the President have to go with the candidate with the most nominating mandates or does he have discretion to go with whomever he thinks will have the best chance of forming a coalition? (I’m thinking of a situation where perhaps the center-left winds up with 56 and the right with 55 and Kahlon in the middle with 9. If Kahlon doesn’t nominate anyone, would Rivlin have to go with Herzog, or could he go with BB on the theory that since the Joint List won’t be part of a coalition, BB has the better chance)?
Law says “best chance” and it is the President that decides that.
Herzogs and Yesh Atid may yet win. I hear that war has broken out in the Degel Hatorah faction of the UTJ. This is the reason why UTJ are only polling 6 seats.
People here are still holding out for UTJ and Shas in government. I am skeptical of that. The draft bill was passed and there will be a temptation to make the Haredi contribute to society economically. There is also much movement to weaken the rabbanut in respects to marriage, kashrut, and immigration. I think the coalition will be Likud, BY, Kulanu, YA, and YB. We may see another massive economic reform like under Begin in the 80s and Netanyahu as Finance Minister in the 00s.
So you are saying that BY is going to cave on religious issues relating to the Rabanut? Maybe we need a new Mizrachi then?
I hate to say this, as I am a big believer in the free market and I love Begin, but I was in Israel in 1980-1 and Begin’s economic reform devastated the economy. Did things change later?
Won’t happen UTJ and Shas will more than very likely be in the Likud government.
JL , you just don’t get Mizrahim, take it from me Kahlon is a traditional Mizrahi with the upmost of respect for Rabbi’s and religious traditions. He will not support any action that harms this area. You will find his interview on the subject very interesting.
Judah: Thanks.
I am afraid Judah is wrong. I just read an article on Arutz Sheva about Kahlon speaking to Haaretz.
He would endorse
-Public transportation on Shabbat
-Criminal sanctions on the Haredi for dodging draft
-Civil Marriage (which would hurt the Rabbinate)
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/192354
Yes.
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