Latest Update: January 17, 2013
A short caveat before we even begin our discussion of last week's aggregated poll results: Prof. Camil Fuchs, the man in charge of Rosner Domain's statistics, had his own Channel 10 News poll Wednesday, in which the outcome is somewhat different than what you see here. In his poll, the leading party, Likud Beiteinu, has declined to a record low of 32 mandates. Thursday morning, a Maariv poll gave Likud Beiteinu 37 mandates – that's 5 more vital mandates. There are, then, significant discrepancies between different polls, and as the last batch or numbers will be released tomorrow (Israeli law doesn't allow publication of polling in the last three days of a campaign), there's no guarantee that we're going to have an agreed-upon outcome – except for the fact that even in the most extreme outliers, no one has thus far suggested that the right-religious bloc is under serious threat of losing its mandate.
Take a look at our latest updated graph of the political blocs – a graph that shows a measure of stabilization in the poll of last week – followed by more comments:
Some analysis and perspective:
Less than a week before Election Day, our index found no change in the spread between the two blocs (Likud-Right-Religious versus the Center-Left): 67 versus 53, exactly as it was last week. Furthermore, the index that we recently added and that is tracking the support for the Prime Minister’s merged party (Likud and Israel Beiteinu) is also exactly as it was last week (34 mandates; the two parties currently have a combined 42 seats in the Knesset).
As we already said last week, there is a reasonable chance that most of the 34 different registered parties will not get enough votes to pass the 2% threshold to get into the Knesset. In the last election, only 12 out of 34 registered parties received enough votes to secure at least two seats in the Knesset. The rest of the 22 contenders received together 104,000 votes – equivalent to almost four seats in the Knesset. Those votes were just wasted. In recent polls it seems that the number of mandates that might be lost this time is much higher – as high as 8 mandates of people voting for parties that will not cross the threshold.
In other words: there's a chance that the totality of the votes cast for the small parties might lead to one of two unpleasant situations: Either several of the small parties will pass the threshold and the Knesset will turn out to be quite fragmented (and consequently unruly) – or not one of the small parties will pass the threshold, but since their support looks much larger than in the previous election, more votes will be wasted (the beneficiaries would be the other parties, the bigger they are the more benefit they get).
Of course, this can change if people decide at the last minute to opt for a more realistic option and change their voting intentions.
Take a look at the different polls included in this graph and analysis:
About this feature:
The Israel’s Poll Trend feature is your best way of following Israel’s polls and understanding Israel’s political numbers. We regularly post an updated Israel’s Poll Trend page that includes the following:
1. Fine-tuned presentation of three possible coalitions: A right-wing coalition, a centrist coalition and a left-wing coalition. This presentation, prepared by Prof. Camil Fuchs, will be at the heart of our attempt to explain how Israel’s political story unfolds until Election Day.
2. The 10 most recent Israeli opinion polls: Namely, the 10 newest polls about political parties that were published by Israeli media. In the table you’ll be able to see where the poll was published, on which date, and the distribution of mandates among Israel’s many parties.
3. Short analysis of the numbers and the dynamics presented in the graph and the table.
Some technical notes:
1. We only use polls available to the public, and we attempt to gather all available polls without missing any.
2. The trendline is weekly – namely, it does not change with every poll but rather by week (based on all polls published during the week).
3. As we go along, the mathematical formula with which we draw the trendline should improve, and become more accurate.
Follow Shmuel Rosner on Twitter and Facebook for facts and figures, analysis and opinion on Israel and the U.S., the Jewish World and the Middle East
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.