Today's Polls 10/31

It's the first weekend since the general election for the Knesset was announced, and we have three new polls: in “Haaretz”, the “Jerusalem Post” and the new metro paper “Israel Hayom”. All three polls reflect higher support for the right wing block than the “Maariv” poll from the midlle of the week. On Israel Hayom both blocks have exactly 60 MKs. Haaretz gives a 61-59 advantage to the right over the center-left block. The Jerusalem Post gives the right a 64-56 advantage, with Kadima and Likud tied at 27 and 14 going to Labor. For some reason, the Post didn't publish the results for the other parties.

The center-left block will be lead by Tzipi Livni, except for the unlikely event of the Labor party getting the same number of MKs (or more) as Kadima, in which case Ehud Barak will lead this block. Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the right wing block, has the upper hand in the coalition game to begin with, since the non-Zionist Arab MKs, which are part of the left-center block, are not considered an eligible part of the government to come. One should also note that we count the Green Party as part of the center-left block, though it might join the right wing after the election. More on the two blocks and on the process of coalition making in future posts.

Here are the Haaretz and Israel Hayom polls:

PARTY // HAARTZ // ISRAEL HAYOM // PRESENT KNESSET

Kadima 31 30 29

Likud 31 31 12

Labor 10 13 19

Israel Beitenu 11 8 11

Shas 10 10 12

Arab Parties (*) 11 10 10

Ihud Leumi 3 6 9

Meretz 5 5 5

Yahadut Hatorah 6 5 6

Green Praty 2 2 -

Gil (senior citizens) - - 7

Right Block (Likud + Israel Beitenu + Shas + Ihud Leumi + Yahadut Hatorah) 61 60 50

Left-Center block (Kadima + Labor + Meretz + Arab Parties + Green/Gil) 59 60 70

Polls published in Israel reflect answers given by likely and decided voters. In many cases they won't even note the likely-unlikely voters rate, nor the decided-undecided. That is the case with the Haartez poll. Israel Hayom's poll has 30 percent (!) of people who are not decided or that refused to answer the poll. The Jerusalem Post poll found that 17 percent of the respondents are undecided.

* Most pollsters put the 3 major Arab parties (Hadash, Balad and Raam) into one category (“Arab Parties”). Haaretz's poll, however, gives Hadash 6 MKs, Balad 3 and Raam 2.