{"id":86540,"date":"2026-04-27T22:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/86540\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T22:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T22:51:11","slug":"poll-shows-new-lapid-bennett-union-edging-out-likud-as-largest-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/86540\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll shows new Lapid-Bennett union edging out Likud as largest party"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid\u2019s combined electoral list, dubbed \u201cTogether,\u201d would receive a total of 26 seats if elections were held Monday, placing them ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s ruling Likud as the Knesset\u2019s largest party, according to a new poll by Channel 12.<\/p>\n<p>In the poll \u2014 the network\u2019s first since Sunday night\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/naftali-bennett-and-yair-lapid-announce-united-run-under-bennett-in-2026-elections\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announcement<\/a> of the union, Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing bloc only garnered 50 out of 120 Knesset seats while the Zionist opposition parties received 60 and the Arab factions 10 \u2014 an identical showing to last Thursday\u2019s Channel 12 survey.<\/p>\n<p>The combined Bennett-Lapid platform\u2019s showing of 26 seats is one less than the two received separately in that previous poll, in which Bennett 2026 and Yesh Atid garnered 21 and 7 seats, respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Together is followed by Likud with 25 seats; Gadi Eisenkot\u2019s centrist Yashar at 15; the left-leaning Democrats at 10; the Mizrahi ultra-Orthodox Shas, the secular, right-wing Yisrael Beytenu and the far-right Otzma Yehudit at 9 each; the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism at 7; and the Arab-majority Hadash-Ta\u2019al and the Islamist Ra\u2019am each with 5.<\/p>\n<p>The ultra-nationalist Arab Balad party, the Reservists, Bezalel Smotrich\u2019s far-right Religious Zionism, and Benny Gantz\u2019s centrist Blue and White all fall below the electoral threshold.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel&#8217;s Daily Edition<br \/>\n\t\t\tby email and never miss our top stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/terms\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">terms<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to the poll, in the event that Eisenkot would join Bennett and Lapid in a single list, their united party would garner 41 seats, but the overall balance of the blocs would remain unaffected.<\/p>\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/static-cdn.toi-media.com\/www\/uploads\/2026\/04\/F260426TG01.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3810456\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/F260426TG01-640x400.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n\t\tGadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar party, speaks during the launch of a book by Yoav Limor and Oren Nahari in Herzliya, central Israel, April 26, 2026 (Tal Gal\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<p>The Channel 12 poll also found that should several right-wing critics of Netanyahu establish an alternative party on the right \u2014 dubbed Likud B by the press \u2014 it would siphon away support from both the coalition and opposition, and would ultimately weaken the opposition bloc\u2019s overall standing.<\/p>\n<p>The poll, carried out by Mano Geva, surveyed 501 Israelis online and over the phone, with a margin of error of 4.4%.<\/p>\n<p>Both Netanyahu and Bennett are again campaigning on not forming a coalition with Arab-majority parties. Bennett pledged not to sit in the same government as Ra\u2019am during the 2021 election campaign, but did subsequently just that in order to form a coalition. Bennett said Sunday that Netanyahu was ready to the same thing, a claim Ra\u2019am leader Mansour Abbas has repeatedly made.<\/p>\n<p>While the 2021-22 Bennett-Lapid government appeared to break the taboo against such high-level political cooperation with Arab majority parties \u2014 and both of them have touted Ra\u2019am chairman Abbas as a trailblazer looking to improve the lives of Israel\u2019s Arab citizens while accepting Israel as a Jewish state \u2014 attitudes toward such collaboration have soured following Hamas\u2019s October 7 attack.<\/p>\n<p>According to a Channel 13 poll also released Monday evening, the coalition would receive 57 seats \u2014 up three from the network\u2019s last poll \u2014 while the Jewish-majority opposition parties would receive 52 and the Arab-majority parties 11 seats.<\/p>\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/static-cdn.toi-media.com\/www\/uploads\/2026\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-04-27-at-19.18.28.jpeg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-3811203\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/WhatsApp-Image-2026-04-27-at-19.18.28-640x400.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the IDF senior command on April 27, 2026. (Kobi Gideon\/GPO)<\/p>\n<p>A Walla poll released earlier Monday showed Together garnering 27 seats, with Likud rising to 28. With Eisenkot, Together would receive 41 seats \u2014 with the opposition standing at 59 seats and the coalition 51.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timesofisrael.com\/polls-find-pms-bloc-far-from-majority-but-most-say-zionist-opposition-also-falls-short\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">poll<\/a> conducted by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel\u2019s Hebrew-language sister site,\u00a0put the current coalition at 51 seats in total, while the Zionist opposition would receive 60 and the Arab-majority parties 9. Neither side would be able to assemble a 61-strong majority and form a government without Arab party support.<\/p>\n<p>Elections must take place by October 2026 at the latest.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tYou appreciate our wartime journalism\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"200\" height=\"200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DH-new-headshot-circular-200x200.png\" class=\"attachment-square size-square wp-post-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"crm-article-popup__counter-wrap\" style=\"display:none\">&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tWe\u2019re really pleased that you\u2019ve read  X Times of Israel articles in the past month.&#13;\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>You clearly find our careful reporting of the Iran war valuable, at a time when facts are often distorted and news coverage often lacks context.<\/p>\n<p>Your support is essential to continue our work. We want to continue delivering the professional journalism you value, even as the demands on our newsroom have grown dramatically during this ongoing conflict.<\/p>\n<p>So today, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. 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Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid\u2019s combined electoral list, dubbed \u201cTogether,\u201d would receive a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[29674,41,30784,16707,37,4029,4030,30253,6489],"class_list":{"0":"post-86540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-2026-israeli-elections","9":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","10":"tag-channel-12","11":"tag-gadi-eisenkot","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-naftali-bennett","14":"tag-poll","15":"tag-together-led-by-naftali-bennett","16":"tag-yair-lapid"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116479124384125931","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}