{"id":289313,"date":"2026-02-13T12:47:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/289313\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:47:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:47:07","slug":"benjamin-netanyahu-naftali-bennett-tied-in-new-elections-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/289313\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett tied in new elections poll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new Maariv poll showed Israel\u2019s opposition bloc rising to 60 seats, tightening the political balance and intensifying competition ahead of the next election.<\/p>\n<p>The survey pointed to a virtual dead heat in the race for prime minister between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/benjamin-netanyahu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> and Naftali Bennett. Netanyahu received 41% support, while Bennett trailed narrowly at 40%.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Gadi Eisenkot boasted a notable gain, rising three seats to 12. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/naftali-bennett\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bennett\u2019s<\/a> party dropped three seats to 21.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The poll was conducted by Lazar Research, headed by Dr. Menachem Lazar, in cooperation with Panel4All, following what it described as a turbulent week on the diplomatic and political front. Overall, the opposition bloc gained one seat, bringing its total to 60.<\/p>\n<p>Most of this week\u2019s movement occurred within the opposition itself. Alongside <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/tags\/gadi-eisenkot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Eisenkot\u2019s<\/a> increase and Bennett\u2019s corresponding decline, Yesh Atid rose by two seats, while the Democrats lost one.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett attends a conference at the Academic College in Tel Aviv, January 7, 2026.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"822\" height=\"829\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/images.jpost.com\/image\/upload\/f_auto,fl_lossy\/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_537,w_822\/702561\"\/>Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett attends a conference at the Academic College in Tel Aviv, January 7, 2026. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Amid an ongoing wave of murders and violence in Arab society, Hadash-Ta\u2019al dropped one seat to five, while Ra\u2019am maintained its current strength.<\/p>\n<p>Netanyahu coalition bloc remains at 50 seats ahead of elections<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">On the coalition side, the bloc remained steady at 50 seats, unchanged from the previous poll. Within the coalition, Likud lost one seat, while Otzma Yehudit gained one.<\/p>\n<p>The breakdown showed the coalition bloc at 50 seats, the opposition\u2013<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/israel-news\/politics-and-diplomacy\/article-886535\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bennett<\/a>\u2013Eisenkot bloc at 60 (up from 59), and Hadash-Ta\u2019al and Ra\u2019am together at 10 (down from 11).<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The survey also tested several head-to-head matchups for prime minister.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Bennett nearly matched Netanyahu, with 40% preferring him and 41% preferring Netanyahu.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Against Eisenkot, Netanyahu held a narrow advantage, with 42% choosing him versus 38% who prefer Eisenkot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Netanyahu\u2019s lead widened against Avigdor Liberman, where he led 46% to 30%, and against Yair Lapid, where he led 47% to 30%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The poll also found that 47% of Israelis do not believe Netanyahu\u2019s version of events regarding the chain of events that led to October 7. By contrast, 28% said they believe his account, while 25% said they do not know.<\/p>\n<p>The survey was conducted on February 11\u201312 among 593 respondents, representing a sample of Israel\u2019s adult population aged 18 and over, both Jewish and Arab. The maximum margin of error is 4%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new Maariv poll showed Israel\u2019s opposition bloc rising to 60 seats, tightening the political balance and intensifying&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,955,85,46,954,953,43,26379],"class_list":{"0":"post-289313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","9":"tag-gadi-eisenkot","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-israeli-politics","13":"tag-naftali-bennett","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-yesh-atid"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289313","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=289313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}