{"id":200643,"date":"2026-08-24T21:52:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/200643\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T21:52:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T21:52:25","slug":"poll-gadi-eisenkot-edges-benjamin-netanyahu-for-pm-suitability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/200643\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: Gadi Eisenkot edges Benjamin Netanyahu for PM suitability"},"content":{"rendered":"

Channel 12\u2019s mandate poll, published Monday evening, shows Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot<\/a> leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a head-to-head matchup over who is more suitable to serve as prime minister. The poll also shows Yashar ranking as the largest party in the Knesset, with 24 seats.<\/p>\n

According to the poll, Yashar, led by Eisenkot, would receive 24 seats if elections were held today. Netanyahu\u2019s Likud would receive 22 seats, Naftali Bennett\u2019s B\u2019Yachad party would receive 15 seats, and Yair Golan\u2019s Democrats would receive 11 seats.<\/p>\n

Avigdor Liberman\u2019s Yisrael Beytenu and Itamar Ben-Gvir\u2019s<\/a> Otzma Yehudit would each receive 9 seats, according to the poll. United Torah Judaism would receive 8 seats, the Joint List would receive 7 seats, Shas would receive 7 seats, Bezalel Smotrich\u2019s Religious Zionist Party would receive 4 seats, and Mansour Abbas\u2019s Ra\u2019am would receive 4 seats.<\/p>\n

Three parties would fail to pass Israel\u2019s electoral threshold, according to the poll: Benny Gantz\u2019s Blue and White, Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein\u2019s Unity party, and the party led by Chili Tropper and Yoaz Hendel.<\/p>\n

The bloc breakdown based on the results shows the coalition bloc with 50 seats, the opposition with 59 seats, and Arab parties with 11 seats.<\/p>\n

\"IsraeliIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem, March 19, 2026. (credit: SHALEV SHALOM\/POOL)Eisenkot beats Netanyahu in PM favorability metric, Arab parties remain at 11 seats<\/p>\n

The poll also examined a scenario in which Brig. Gen. (res.) Ofer Winter<\/a>, who is expected to announce the formation of a new party on Tuesday, runs in the election. In this scenario, Likud loses one seat, Bennett\u2019s B\u2019Yachad\u00a0gains one seat, and Smotrich\u2019s Religious Zionist Party falls below the electoral threshold, similar to a Kan News mandate poll published Sunday.<\/p>\n

Under that scenario, the bloc distribution would shift, with the coalition falling to 49 seats, the opposition rising to 60 seats, and Arab parties remaining with 11 seats.<\/p>\n

Eisenkot also holds an advantage over Netanyahu when respondents were asked who is better suited to serve as prime minister. In a direct matchup between the two, 44% of respondents said Eisenkot was more suitable for the position, compared to 34% who chose Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

In a matchup against Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu received 37% support as the more suitable candidate for prime minister, compared to 39% for Bennett. Against Avigdor Liberman<\/a>, Netanyahu received 35% support, compared to 28% for Lieberman.<\/p>\n

In the remaining scenarios, respondents answered either \u201cdon\u2019t know\u201d or \u201cneither.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Channel 12\u2019s mandate poll, published Monday evening, shows Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot leading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16469],"tags":[28582,29440,25667,244,29441,18161,20212,16767,18016,20210,38433,40280,40281,89328,31985],"class_list":["post-200643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-2026-israeli-elections","tag-avigdor-liberman","tag-ben-gvir","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-benny-gantz","tag-bezalel-smotrich","tag-gadi-eisenkot","tag-itamar-ben-gvir","tag-knesset","tag-likud","tag-raam","tag-shas","tag-united-torah-judaism","tag-yashar-party","tag-yashar-with-eisenkot"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117152706891305249","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}