Just four days before Israelis head to the polls, a final Channel 12 News election poll shows a significant lead for the opposition parties, alongside an improvement in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's standing in head-to-head comparisons with his political rivals.
According to the poll, Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar! party wins 23 seats, unchanged from the previous survey. Netanyahu's Likud gains two seats to reach 21, leaving a gap of just two seats between the two largest parties.
The poll shows Naftali Bennett's "Together" party maintaining its strength with 15 seats, while Yair Golan's Democrats gain one seat to reach 10. The Joint List, led by Yousef Jabareen, receives nine seats.
Three parties follow with eight seats each: Aryeh Deri's Shas, Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu, and Itamar Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit, which gains support compared to the previous poll.
United Torah Judaism (UTJ), led by Yaakov Asher, receives seven seats, the Religious Zionism-Zehut list headed by Bezalel Smotrich wins six, and Mansour Abbas's Ra'am (United Arab List) rounds out the parties crossing the electoral threshold with five seats.
Ofer Winter's Amcha Yisrael party receives 2.5% of respondents' votes, while the Reservists-Economic list headed by Yoaz Hendel receives 2.4%. Both remain below the threshold required to enter the Knesset.
The Haredi Public Party, led by Moti Leitner, and the Noam LeYisrael party, led by Avi Maoz, also fail to cross the electoral threshold, each receiving 0.5% of the vote.
Divided into political blocs, the Channel 12 poll shows the anti-Netanyahu bloc reaching 70 seats, compared to 50 for the coalition parties. However, of those 70 seats, 56 belong to the Zionist parties of the Change Bloc, while 14 belong to the Arab parties.
A majority of 61 seats is needed to form a coalition.
Alongside the projected distribution of Knesset seats, the poll indicates a shift in the personal contest for the premiership. Although Eisenkot continues to lead Netanyahu on the question of suitability for prime minister, the gap between them has narrowed.
In a direct comparison, 44% of respondents believe Eisenkot is better suited to serve as prime minister, compared to 38% who prefer Netanyahu. The gap now stands at just six percentage points, down from 11 points in the previous poll. Another 14% believe neither candidate is suitable, while 4% are undecided.
Netanyahu has also improved his standing against Naftali Bennett. After Bennett led in previous polls on the question of suitability for prime minister, the two are now tied, with 39% supporting Bennett and 39% Netanyahu. Another 17% believe neither is suitable for the position, while 5% are undecided.
Against Avigdor Liberman, however, Netanyahu enjoys a clear advantage. Forty percent of respondents prefer Netanyahu as prime minister, compared to 28% who favor Liberman. The gap has widened from nine to 12 percentage points since the previous survey.
Another question examined which type of government respondents would prefer after the election, with the results indicating a clear preference for a government led by the anti-Netanyahu bloc.
Forty-six percent prefer a government led by the "bloc of change," compared to 32% who want a government led by Netanyahu's bloc. Another 15% prefer a national unity government, while 7% are undecided.
However, a more complicated question concerns what will happen after the election: What should the anti-Netanyahu parties do if they cannot secure a 61-seat majority without the Arab parties?
The poll asked "bloc of change" voters how they would prefer their parties to proceed under such circumstances. The responses indicate substantial support for forming a government that would rely on Ra'am abstaining during the Knesset confidence vote.
Sixty percent of "bloc of change" voters prefer establishing a minority government with Ra'am abstaining from the confidence vote. Only 10% favor a unity government with Likud, while 20% prefer another election. An additional 10% are undecided.