While polls conducted since the Knesset voted to dissolve itself last Wednesday and call for new elections have largely suggested that the next election will leave the political map largely unchanged, veteran pollster Rafi Smith says that a deep dive into the data shows that the March 2nd election could prove decisive, ending Israel’s year-long political deadlock.
Smith, the senior pollster at the Smith Institute, spoke with Arutz Sheva about the upcoming election to the 23rd Knesset, and why it may prove to be more decisive than the two elections in 2019.
“The polls today describe a starting off point of where we are today,” Smith told Arutz Sheva. “Nearly all of the polls from April till now have shown the blocs largely unchanged, with only minor differences. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be a change.”
“It doesn’t take a lot to make a change so that in this situation you’ll have one of the blocs with a chance at getting 61 seats one way or another. It’s enough for 50,000 or 100,000 people to change their minds, or for the turnout rate of one bloc to be bigger than the other, to make the election decisive. We saw in the April election that because of a few thousand votes, the right-wing bloc, without Liberman, got just 60 seats.”
In the elections for the 21st Knesset, held in April, the right-wing – religious bloc received 60 seats, and failed to secure a 61-seat majority after the New Right party failed to cross threshold by a margin of roughly 1,400 votes.
“In the April election, the right-wing parties including Feiglin’s (Zehut), Bennett’s (New Right), and the United Right got 415,000 votes combined, but because they split the vote, they got only five seats, and 250,000 votes were wasted. Changing the allocation of those votes would be enough to give the [right-wing] bloc more seats.”
“On the other hand, if there is an increase in voter turnout in the Arab sector; or if you have a repeat of what happened in the second election [of 2019] where some of the heavily right-wing areas had lower turnout than the left-wing areas – which reached their peak – you could get a different result.”
“I still think that it is reasonable to believe that the results this time will be different. Liberman gained significantly in the second election, from 170,000 votes to 310,000. If just 50,000 voters won’t vote for him this time, that would change the whole picture.”
“We’re still far offer from being able to say what the results will be. But I am convinced that we can get a more decisive result in this election than the election in September.”
Smith added that polling at this point is important primarily as an indicator of trends in public opinion.
“It is likely that if certain people look at data” it could influence their decision ahead of the election. "The left-wing bloc might decide to unite parties because some of them are worried about crossing the threshold.”
“On the Right we have the same situation – it makes sense for the Right to run in three lists: the Likud, the New Right of Bennett and Shaked, and the United Right, which logically would include Otzma Yehudit in order not to waste votes.”
“If in the previous election the Right, not including the haredim, got 39 seats, they need to get at least three to five more seats in order for the bloc as a whole, including the haredim, to get to 61 seats. That isn’t simple, its complicated, but that has to be the right-wing’s goal. All of the parties on the Right need to get a total of 10 more seats to really ensure that the bloc wins.”