

New Poll: Hendel and Tropper clear electoral threshold, reshaping the political Blocs

A Maariv poll published Friday points to a significant shift in Israel's political landscape. The new "Yesodot Israel" party, led by Chili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel, crosses the electoral threshold for the first time with four seats, while Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar! and Likud are tied at 22 seats each.
Naftali Bennett's Together party drops by two seats to 16. The Democrats, led by Yair Golan, gain one seat to reach 11, while Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu falls by two seats to nine.
Within the coalition bloc, Likud gains one seat to reach 22, while Shas and Otzma Yehudit each lose one seat, falling to seven. United Torah Judaism remains at eight seats, and the Religious Zionist party holds steady at four.
Among the Arab parties, Hadash-Ta'al drops one seat to five, while Ra'am, led by Mansour Abbas, remains at five seats. Balad and Blue and White fail to cross the electoral threshold, polling at 2% and 1.7%, respectively.
The poll gives Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition bloc 48 seats, one fewer than in the previous survey. The Zionist opposition, including the new Tropper-Hendel party, reaches 62 seats, while the Arab parties collectively hold 10 seats, one fewer than in the previous poll.
The survey also found that 83% of opposition voters oppose including haredi parties in a future governing coalition, while 8% support such a move. Among coalition voters, 59% support including the haredi parties, compared with 19% who oppose it.
Among Arab party voters, 70% support including one or more Arab parties in the next coalition, 10% oppose the idea, 16% say it makes no difference to them, and 4% are undecided.
The poll further found that a majority of Israelis do not trust the current government to make the right decisions until the next election. Fifty-five percent said they lack confidence in the government, while 38% expressed confidence. Trust remains high among coalition voters at 78%, while 85% of opposition voters, 80% of Arab party voters, and 64% of undecided voters said they do not trust the government.
The survey was conducted by Lazar Research, headed by Dr. Menachem Lazar, in cooperation with the All4Panel online panel.