What Israeli election polls tell us this week

We have a new feature for you. Until Israel's Election Day, we will share with you data from Nehemia Gershuni's wonderful data site, in which Israeli numbers, polls, compilations, and projections are king. Gershuni kindly agreed that we use some of his data to bolster our own collection of data that we've been gathering for quite some time. 

So, starting this week, if you follow our Poll-Trend tracker, you'll be able to see there not only the most recent polls from Israel, but also Gershuni's statistical analysis of what the most recent polls tell us – at least when it comes to numbers. You will see how many seats each party is projected to get in the next Knesset – the best poll of the last days, the worst, and the party's average. Here's his latest table of projection of expected seats for Israel's parties, if elections were held today (although, as we demonstrated not long ago, what the polls say today is hardly indicative of the final outcome on Election Day). Gershuni takes into account in this weighted projection the accuracy of pollsters in previous elections (if you want more data (Hebrew) on the accuracy of Israeli pollsters – go here):

And here is a table in which you see for each party the best poll, the worst poll, and the average number of seats from the latest six polls:

Gershuni also has a proposed calculation of how this data translates to coalition blocs. The bloc projection is based on the average mandates for each party in the 3 latest polls. And there are two such projections. The first is for the so-called “traditional bloc” arrangement. That is to say: a bloc that puts the “right” as a bloc, the “center” as a bloc, the “left” as a bloc (along with the Arab parties), and the “Haredi parties” as a blog. Whether such a division can work in the next election is questionable. Lieberman and Israel Beiteinu have already hinted that they are open to a coalition without Likud; the Haredi parties might not want to give Netanyahu another term after the one in which he excluded them; the Arab parties might not support a coalition of Labor (not even from the outside); Kahlon and Yesh Atid have different view points. So nuances are many and “tradition” could prove to be a poor guide to the coming election.

The latest traditional coalition bloc table looks like this (some of the polls in it are from before the division of Shas into two competing factions – the one headed by Aryeh Deri and the one headed by Eli Yishai):

A more nuanced division of the projected mandates into blocs better demonstrates the many possibilities for a future coalition. Of course, even with this nuanced division questions remain. Should we really count Kahlon and Lieberman as a bloc? And if we do, why do we separate them when we put together the “traditional” division? Is Meretz a bloc with the Arabs? Are the haredis still a bloc after the division of Shas? (Maybe Shas can sit in a Labor coalition, but Yishai certainly would not.)

Still, the division bellow is better if you'd like to toy with coalition scenarios. Labor could sit with (some) Haredis, but it is hard to imagine a Labor coalition with both haredis and Lapid. And it is also hard to imagine Lieberman working in a coalition that relies on the vote of the Arab parties. In short: this table shows you that currently Netanyahu's way for a coalition seems much simpler. That is, except for the fact that so many heads of parties are looking for a way to get rid of him. These are interesting elections.