Jeremy's Knesset Insider

This week’s polling underscores Naftali Bennett’s emergence as the dominant alternative in the national leadership landscape. Voters increasingly identify Bennett as the most credible challenger, and in head-to-head prime-minister matchups he now performs almost on par with the incumbent, well ahead of all other contenders.

Issue Trends

This week’s polling cycle places leadership and economic sentiment squarely at the center of public opinion. In head-to-head matchups for prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu leads Naftali Bennett, yet both perform notably better than the rest of the field. Against Yair Lapid and Gadi Eisenkot, the “Don’t Know” category actually outperforms both challengers, underscoring significant voter hesitation about the current political bench beyond Netanyahu and Bennett.

Among opposition voters, Bennett emerges as the preferred leader, despite not holding a Knesset seat. His advantage over Eisenkot, Liberman, Lapid, and Golan signals both a vacuum in the elected opposition and the resonance of Bennett’s centrist-right positioning with voters searching for an alternative.

Policy sentiment is equally decisive. A clear majority opposes the government’s draft-exemption legislation, and most respondents say its primary purpose is to exempt most Haredim from service rather than increase enlistment. Meanwhile, nearly half say cost-of-living pressure will influence their next vote to the same extent as in 2022, while more than a third say it will play an even larger role, making it a dominant electoral issue moving forward.

Bloc Trends

Across nearly all polls, the Bennett bloc continues to outperform the Netanyahu bloc, reaffirming the competitive nature of the political landscape and the continuing erosion of automatic pro-Netanyahu support. Within the blocs, Avigdor Liberman and Yair Golan show remarkably stable ranges (9–11 seats), Lapid fluctuates more dramatically (4–10 seats), and Eisenkot shows modest, steady performance (5–8 seats). These dynamics illustrate the fluidity within Bennett’s bloc, with no single figure consolidating broad support beyond the leader.

Eyes on the Threshold

The threshold battles remain highly volatile. Benny Gantz fails to cross the electoral threshold in any survey, ranging from a high of 3 percent to a low of 1.2 percent. Bezalel Smotrich passes the threshold in only two polls, peaking at four seats but dropping to as low as 2 percent in others. Hendel has a high of four seats and a low of 1.6 percent, while Balad continues to hover below the threshold, polling between 2.8 percent and 1.3 percent. These margins underscore a crowded and unstable environment at the bottom of the political spectrum, with several parties at risk of wasting votes.

What to Expect Next

With the government budget now approved, political attention, and the polling that follows it, is expected to keep shifting heavily toward cost-of-living issues. In wake of budget talks in Knesset, inflation, wages, and consumer prices are likely to dominate the coming news cycle and voter sentiment.

The main highlight from this week’s four polls is the battle around the electoral threshold. Gantz and Smotrich each clear the threshold in one poll, while Miluimnikim and Balad remain below it in all surveys. This marks the fourth consecutive week in which Eisenkot fails to reach double digits in any poll. In the prime minister suitability questions, Bennett continues to stand out as Netanyahu’s strongest challenger in both head-to-head matchups and overall rankings.

The Bennett bloc continues to show strong upward momentum, reaching as high as 62 seats in the Maariv poll and 58–59 seats in three other surveys, with the Filber poll standing out as a clear outlier. With the exception of Filber, the bloc consistently polls at or above 58 seats, indicating solid structural support across different polling methods and samples.

The Netanyahu bloc receives 48–52 seats in four of the polls. Excluding the Filber survey, the bloc appears stuck at roughly 50–52 seats, showing no signs of upward movement.

The Arab bloc remains the most stable of all, with minimal variation—consistently between 9 and 11 seats.

A particularly notable data point appears in the Maariv poll, where Bennett’s party ties Likud. Historically, when Bennett’s party draws even with or surpasses Likud, his bloc tends to cross the 61-seat threshold.