{"id":273603,"date":"2026-02-04T13:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/273603\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T13:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T13:33:07","slug":"naftali-bennett-hires-us-pollsters-ahead-of-israel-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/273603\/","title":{"rendered":"Naftali Bennett hires US pollsters ahead of Israel election"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former prime minister <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-882838\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Naftali Bennett<\/a> announced that two senior American political consultants and pollsters, Anthony Fabrizio and George Birnbaum, were joining his campaign team on Wednesday ahead of Israel\u2019s upcoming elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fabrizio currently serves as a central adviser and pollster to US President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/american-politics\/article-885514\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a>. He also served as Trump&#8217;s pollster during both the 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns.<\/p>\n<p>Birnbaum has taken part in every nationwide election campaign in Israel since 1996, as well as in more than 20 national election campaigns around the world, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-884009\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bennett\u2019s office<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p>The additions are seen as a way to put pressure on rival candidate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, political sources say. The move is also viewed as a way for Bennett to get closer to key figures and demonstrate that he can work with<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/opinion\/article-885310\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> Trump.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Fabrizio and Birnbaum have both advised Netanyahu in the past. Birnbaum also served as his chief of staff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Bennett\u2019s office underscored that the two also worked with Arthur Finkelstein, a Republican Party consultant who represented conservative and right-wing candidates worldwide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Bennett said that he was \u201cproud and honored to add two highly successful and experienced advisers like Tony and George to my team.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">\u201cTheir extensive experience in Israel and around the world will be of enormous value to me and to our team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">\u201cI am confident they will help lead us to victory and, in doing so, also help heal and unite our country,\u201d Bennett added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Bennett&#8217;s right-wing party, Bennett 2026, has been trailing Netanyahu&#8217;s Likud in recent polls. The elections are currently slated to take place no later than the end of October 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former prime minister Naftali Bennett announced that two senior American political consultants and pollsters, Anthony Fabrizio and George&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,141920,54,85,46,116021,953,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-273603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","9":"tag-bennett-headline","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israeli-election","14":"tag-naftali-bennett","15":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}