The Likud party is still trailing Labor in the polls, but Binyamin Netanyahu may still manage to edge out Yitzhak Herzog and Tzipi Livni in cobbling together a coalition government, according to the latest survey.
According to a Channel Two/Sarid poll released Thursday, if elections were held today Labor would be the largest party with 25 seats, followed by Likud with 22.
That would mean that Herzog's party would be invited by President Reuven Rivlin to form a coalition government, and will most likely be able to do so - but a look at the wider picture reveals that Likud still has an outside chance of stealing victory.
Potential partners for Labor would include Yisrael Beytenu (10), Yesh Atid (9), Kulanu (7) and Meretz (7). Assuming Aryeh Deri's Shas party (4) would also agree to sit in a coalition including Yesh Atid - despite having savaged the Jewish Home party for doing so in the 19th Knesset - that would be enough seats (62) to form a government. With the backing of the Arab bloc (12) on key policy issues such as concessions to the Palestinian Authority, it would be a fairly comfortable, if bumpy majority.
However, being the largest party is not always a guarantee to forming the government - as 2009's elections illustrated, when the Kadima party won the largest number of seats but failed to form a government.
Only 59 seats would be held by parties who have categorically rejected sitting in a Likud-led government according to the poll - Labor, Yesh Atid, Meretz and the Arab parties - leaving the possibility(slight though that may be) open for a wily Netanyahu to outmaneuver Labor as he did to Kadima in 2009.
Polling once again at third place is the right-wing Jewish Home party, with 17 seats; together with Yisrael Beytenu (10), United Torah Judaism (7), Kulanu (7), and Shas (4), that would make 67 seats for a Likud-led government.
According to the poll Eli Yishai's Ha'am Itanu party would not make it into the 20th Knesset, along with Kadima.
Of course, with more than two months to go until the general elections, anything and everything could still change.