The Israeli Voter Index of the Israel Democracy Institute reports that if the government loses its majority in the Knesset, 37% of Israelis support going to the polls, 31% establishing a new coalition and 27% a minority government.
A majority - 57% - of respondents in the survey think they will vote for the same party if elections are held in the near future. The highest rate of voter retention is among the United Torah Judaism, Likud and Religious Zionist parties, and the lowest rate among Yamina and New Hope.
The Israeli Voter Index of the Viterbi Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute is compiled once a month by Prof. Tamar Herman and Dr. Or Anavi, and is based on a representative national sample (760 interviewees) of the entire adult population in Israel aged 18 and over. The sample is 3.6% of the population.
If the coalition loses the majority in the Knesset, the most preferred option by the public is new elections (37.5%), in second place - only slightly lower - the formation of a new coalition without elections (31%), and in third place - the formation of a minority government of the current government (27%).
Segmentation by vote in previous elections shows that about half (49%) of coalition party voters prefer a minority government, while among opposition party voters more than half (55%) prefer holding new elections. Approximately a third of coalition and opposition voters would prefer a new coalition without elections.
Slightly less than half of the respondents (46%) expressed great or some degree of satisfaction (48% of Jews and 33% of Arabs) with the performance of the Knesset members of the party for which they voted. Most satisfied are voters for the Yesh Atid (75%) party. Yamina commands only 32% satisfaction.
Despite the widespread dissatisfaction of their representatives in the Knesset, if there had been a Knesset election today, the majority (57.5%) of the respondents think or are sure that they will vote for the same party they voted for in the last election. 20% think they will not vote for the same party, 12% stated that they do not know and about 10% answered that they did not vote in the last election or that they probably will not vote if they hold an election.
Only 55% of party voters currently in the coalition think or are sure they will vote for the same party compared to 80% of opposition party voters. Segmentation by vote shows that a large majority of those who voted for United Torah Judaism, Religious Zionism, the Likud and Shas indicated that they would vote for these parties again. Relatively high rates were also found among United Arab List voters and Yesh Atid. At the other end of the scale, 36% of Yamina voters and 18% of New Hope voters think they will vote again for these parties again.
A large majority of opposition party voters believe that Israel's situation has deteriorated in all areas compared to the period before the current government took office, except for the condition of the improved Arab citizens of Israel. On the other hand, high rates of coalition party voters see improvement or no change in all areas examined, except in the area of tensions in Israeli society.
In the economic sphere, while among coalition party voters a higher proportion (41.5%) believe that the situation has improved, 75% of opposition voters believe that there has been a deterioration. In the security field, coalition party voters are divided (35.5% better, 33% worse, 30% the same), while a majority (74%) of opposition party voters think the situation has changed for the worse. In the political-diplomatic field, a higher proportion of coalition party voters (46%) see improvement in the past year, while 70% of opposition party voters see deterioration.
Regarding tensions between groups in society, the higher rate among coalition party voters (48%) believe that the situation has worsened, and among opposition party voters support for this position reaches 72%. Regarding the integrity of Israel’s leadership, over half (54%) of the coalition party voters see improvement, and among the opposition party voters, a lower rate (59%) than in the other areas, believe that the situation has worsened.
As for the situation of Arab citizens of Israel, over half (54%) of the coalition party voters believe that their situation has improved, as has a relatively high percentage (46%) of opposition party voters. As for the Arab public, among the United Arab List voters, 37% think that the situation of the Arab citizens of Israel has improved compared to only 13% of the Joint Arab List voters who think so.
The Israeli Voter Index May 2022 was compiled by the Viterbi Center for the Study of Public Opinion and Policy at the Israel Democracy Institute. The survey, conducted online and by telephone (completions of groups that are not properly represented on the network) between 23-25 / 5/2022, interviewed 601 men and women in the Hebrew language and 159 in the Arabic language, which constitute a representative national sample of the entire adult population in Israel aged 18 and over. The maximum sampling error for the whole sample is 3.59% ± at a confidence level of 95%. The fieldwork was carried out by the Midgam Institute.