A Party That Does Not Exist Yet Polls at Five Seats

A survey by Tatika Research and Media for Zman Yisrael tested a right-wing list that has not been founded, headed by former UN ambassador Gilad Erdan and Likud MK Yuli Edelstein. It returned five seats. The poll sampled 500 respondents on 29 and 30 July with a margin of error of 4.4 percent.

In the same survey Likud took 20 seats. Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar led the field on 23, Naftali Bennett's Together took 14, Yisrael Beytenu 10, and Yair Golan's Democrats 8. Shas and United Torah Judaism took 8 each, Otzma Yehudit 7, and Religious Zionism 6. Among the Arab-majority parties, a merged Hadash, Ta'al and Balad list took 6 and Ra'am 5, for 11 in total.

The bloc arithmetic is what makes the five seats interesting. The parties opposed to another Netanyahu government reached 55, against 49 for his bloc. A new right-wing list drawing from the same pool as Likud does not add to the right, it redistributes inside it, and at a margin of error of 4.4 percent five seats is a number that could be most of a majority or almost nothing.

Polls this far from a ballot measure a mood rather than a result, and one that asks about a party nobody has registered measures something narrower still: whether two well known politicians could take a following with them if they left.