Talk:Opinion polling for the next Israeli legislative election

May 30 Maariv poll

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that for polls that include multiple scenarios, the practice for this article has been to include the poll in both the main "Seat projections" section as well as the "Scenario polls" section. That is what we have done for previous Maariv polls (May 22, May 7, May 2, April 18, etc.). Is there a reason that the most recent Maariv poll is being excluded from "Seat projections" and only included under "Scenario polls," when it includes results for both the Bennett and non-Bennett scenarios? Best, Jacoby531 (talk) 02:17, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

Concur. This poll should be added. It seems to me that pollsters include Bennett 2026 rather than not. Rather, it should be considered to add Bennett 2026 scenarios to the main seat projections. The scenario will instead be if Bennet's party does not run. At some point our main graph will become outdated, if not already, now that the main pollsters/sources only include Bennet's party. JUQD4SYRZy (talk) 16:15, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

Main graph is absolutely outdated. Philosopher Spock (talk) 04:12, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

I've put it back. David O. Johnson (talk) 05:57, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Could someone check the numbers on this poll? Philosopher Spock (talk) 23:15, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

It looks like it's listed twice in the Scenario section, too. David O. Johnson (talk) 23:20, 28 June 2025 (UTC)

Legend and Bennett’s party

How should we update the legend to include Bennett's party?

It wasn't exactly part of the 36th government, since that would have been Yamina, and not this separate, newer party.

Thoughts? David O. Johnson (talk) 06:00, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Bennett is almost universally lumped in with the opposition bloc. I think we should go with the sources and do the same Totalstgamer (talk) 12:20, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

I've moved them to the same location as Balad, as they're not a parliamentary party. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 10:39, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

This is unwise, Bennett's opposition to Netanyahu is well documented and he is convinced of Netanyahu's alleged corruption. Ideologically he may be more aligned with the Government but he has stated he would not align to Likkud. 2600:4041:5500:B000:8072:D34D:D559:8FC2 (talk) 21:26, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

We don't even know if Bennett will run; it seems speculative to assume he would, per WP:CRYSTAL. I'd say conflating the new Bennett party with Yamina in the legend is misleading, as well. David O. Johnson (talk) 21:30, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

Exactly. It's textbook WP:CRYSTALing to put a brand new party in with the unified opposition bloc. Especially, as you said, since we can't confirm that the party will run, nor can we assume that the party will even align itself with the current opposition. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 23:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

also it is kinda the new independent/neutral right-wing party like Kulanu, YB, Yamina & New Hope before them Braganza (talk) 06:59, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

Disagree. Support placing Bennet in opposition-bloc. Our sources and polls exclusively consider and list Bennet's party as an opposition-bloc party. Our polls should reflect our sources, no matter the direction they speculate. I might say it is speculative to say that Bennett would not run, or that he would not align with the opposition. But we follow WP:CRYSTAL and WP:OR. JUQD4SYRZy (talk) 14:58, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I similarly disagree on account of the near universal agreement among sources. I can't think of a single major pollster that doesn't lump Bennett in with the opposition bloc. WP:CRYSTALBALL mentions that "Predictions, speculation, forecasts and theories stated by reliable, expert sources or recognized entities in a field may be included, though editors should be aware of creating undue bias to any specific point of view.". Sources that include Bennett in the opposition bloc include every single major pollster: Maariv (as "Bennett-opposition bloc"), Reshet 13, Kan 11 (as the "Bennett bloc"), Keshet 12, i24 (as the "Change bloc", a common term for the previous government), Now 14 and Israel Hayom (as "Opposition bloc with Bennett"). Networks reporting on polls seem to be similarly in agreement, such as Walla (as "opposition bloc with Bennett"), Kippah (as "Opposition to Netanyahu without Arab parties") and Kikar HaShabbat which sometimes mentions the bloc both with and without Bennett in the same article. The only instance i could find of an outlet that doesn't do this is Haaretz, which lists Bennett seperately.

Edit: i forgot to mention Times of Israel, which calls the opposition the "Bennett bloc", as well as The Jerusalem Post.

A good solution in my opinion would be to mention this in a footnote. Either we put Bennett in the opposition column with a footnote explaining its the popular sentiment amongst media outlets, or we place Bennett in a seperate column with a footnote explaining the media sentiment for extra context. Totalstgamer (talk) 19:17, 23 June 2025 (UTC)

I support Totalstgamer’s proposal. I would also note that it’s not obvious that including Bennett in the opposition bloc in line with the original presentation of polling data is really a meaningful prediction of the future within the meaning of WP:CRYSTAL. In reproducing polls readers presumably understand that further changes are possible (e.g. Bennett might drop out, Hadash might be banned, Eisenkot might split from Gantz…) Docentation (talk) 21:23, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

@Docentation But polls this far out (especially in a country with as tumultuous/fast-changing a political scene as Israel) are not predictors, they are snapshots of current support and voter alignment/sentiment

The current political scene understands Bennet as part of the opposition camp. Voters back his party presently with that same understanding. If he tomorrow said he was pro-Netanyahu, that’d probably alter the way the polls look significantly (with many supporters of his party shifting support to opposition camp parties, and perhaps some government-camp support moving to Bennett) SecretName101 (talk) 19:55, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. That’s my point—to tabulate a poll with Bennett in the opposition now is not to say that this is precisely the ballot that voters will have and the alignemnt of the parties when they vote. Docentation (talk) 19:54, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

@David O. Johnson But polls are including him as running. Not as an alternative scenario question, but as a party in their main question .

Pollsters clearly think he is going to run, or at least is significantly more likely to run than not

He has taken the clear steps of someone who will run, literally registering a new party with his name, the year

Logically; pollsters belief he will run passes the smell test.  He is a relatively young ambitious politician who had angled to be PM beginning in the early 2010s, and now sees a chance to win a very large seat count per polls putting in a position to be PM again

It’d be WP:CrystalBall for us to hedge on “well, he could potentially decide not to run because of such and such unforeseen health crisis or political scandal. We cannot  know. therefore we should not list him the way polls do”. At the moment, pollsters are treating the the race as one in which he will run: our list of polls should reflect the nature of polls.

It is possible any one of the parties polled could dissolve, merge or form a joint list with another party, opt to skip this election, change allegiances. It’s also possible that parties not currently polled (currently under-the radar or minor; have never contested for Knesset or have at least not in recent cycles) could opt to contest. In fact: at least one of those things could probably occur, if past elections in Israel are any guide. Polls are a snapshot of present support and alignments, not a magical look into the future. SecretName101 (talk) 19:52, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

I understand your point.

Even though we technically don't know whether Bennett will run, multiple RSes presuppose that he would be the head of the opposition; I was pushing my interpretation of WP:Crystal a bit hard. I agree on listing Bennett as part of the opposition. David O. Johnson (talk) 19:58, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

@David O. Johnson that’s kind of in keeping with what we see in seat-projection polling of many other multi-party systems.

It is not uncommon for polls to project a most-likely government when projecting seat counts Look at seat projection polls in New Zealand or Germany: they will give a forecast listing the most likely path to a governing majority, or whether it appears the result is hung with no major camp/easy-to-imagine grouping of parties reaching such a majority . That does not mean that government formation in such an outcome would go that way. In New Zealand , for instance, it’s not utterly impossible NZ First joins a Labor instead of a National gov like they did after 2017 (it is not implausible to end up with a Labor-Green-NZ First coalition with or without Te Parti Māori membership or supply/confidence); or a Labor-NZ First-Te Parti Māori coalition without Greens). But it’s still highly useful in those elections to have these indicators of where the most plausible party groupings stand. SecretName101 (talk) 20:15, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Bennett 2026 IS a brand new party, but Naftali Bennett is NOT new. He is clearly anti-Bibi. So unless Bibi retires, Bennett 2026 is not only Opposition, he appears to be leading the Opposition. This is about the next Knesset, not the current one. I think we have a 6 to 3 consensus (including SecretName101 in subsequent section). Philosopher Spock (talk) 19:23, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

7 to 2 Philosopher Spock (talk) 21:47, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Bennett-led party is widely listed in reliable media sources reporting on polls as being in the "opposition camp", which Balad is excluded from. This makes utter sense, as he was prime minister of the anti-Netanyahu government that camp previously formed, and has not indicated that his attitude towards Netanyahu continuing as PM has changed much (if at all), nor has he made major declarations of being unwilling to form a government with the opposition camp. Media sources tend to outline three camps: government/Netanyahu allied; opposition/anti-Netanyahu; and a third camp of Arab parties that lack a history of joining government.

Why would we WP:Synth here? Reliable sources say it is in the opposition camp.

Doing so would also be confusing to readers  un-versed in the nation’s politics. They read what is actually a mere shift of mandates going to the opposition camp towards a newly-formed party as instead being a precipitous double-digit June decline in support for the opposition camp around the time of the Iran-Israel war’s outbreak. That’d leave a very inaccurate impression to a lot of people coming here for better insight.

Israeli parties and their support are highly centered on their leader. Parties are often founded around singular politicians, and disappear if that politician exits the political scene. It is a difference without a significant distinction that he is using a new vehicle and not Yamina now. In fact; that arguably makes his party fit even more squarely in the opposition camp. In 2022, there was some backlash in Yamina and contention from its Knesset ranks over his decision to enter a government featuring some of the opposition camp parties. It was seen by many as a surprising move. This time around, nobody in his party would be blindsided by the possibility he could form a government with the same camp/parties he already once before did. SecretName101 (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 June 2025

Under "Seat Projections" in the table of 2025 after Bennett 2026 registered as a party, error has been made : Current seats does not corresponds to parties, error has been made by adding "Bennett 2026" in table without moving all "current seats" after the new inserted party one column to the right. 109.137.145.186 (talk) 13:34, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

 Already done -- Maddy from Celeste (WAVEDASH) 21:06, 8 July 2025 (UTC)

David O. Johnson, undo your edit warring

@David O. Johnson

Edit warring would be making a bold change (like the one you made), and continually restoring it after reverts rather than opening discussion. Please restore to how it was before your edit warring, and discuss.

BRD (which you evidently aware of ) would guide you to discuss rather than continually restore your bold change.

you are making a bold change. The treatment of scenario polls have for years included a Bennett party as part of the opposition coalition total. Before your change, new polls did the same. You made your changes contrary to reliable sources including l Bennet as an opposition coalition party leader, and the fact thatBennett was prime minister for the current opposition coalition previously SecretName101 (talk) 22:48, 24 June 2025 (UTC)

@David O. Johnson , are you not going to make a case for why your changes should stand? It has been more than a day SecretName101 (talk) 04:02, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Please just join the above conversation so consensus can be reached. Whatever the status quo is can be kept until then. Totalstgamer (talk) 15:14, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

I undid my edit earlier and chimed in on the conversation. David O. Johnson (talk) 19:59, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Ra'am and New Hope

Should Ra'am be included in the Opposition bloc? Media seems not to. Bennett wants his coalition to be Zionist only. Ayman Odeh is attempting to include them in a Joint List. Perhaps categories should be Zionist Opposition and Arab Parties. Also, should New Hope be removed or combined with Likud? They're merging in the election. There could be a note stating their current seats. Philosopher Spock (talk) 16:10, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

If there's a hung knesset where neither Zionist bloc can muster more than 60 votes where do you think Ra'am would fall? Given their past performance they would block with the other opposition parties. Wellington Bay (talk) 16:16, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

@Philosopher Spock they have not merged yet, i see where you are coming from but so far these are just speculation. Even alliances which were formed can collapse at the last minute (Otzma+Noam, United Jewish Home, Zionist Spirit, Hadash+Balad last time) Braganza (talk) 07:12, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

but with Ra'am you actually have a point, they are often excluded Braganza (talk) 07:23, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

Per the above discussion on Bennett, all the afromentioned sources also list Ra'am seperately from the opposition. We should thus probably do the same. Totalstgamer (talk) 13:39, 27 June 2025 (UTC)

National Unity Split

I think we should wait a day or two, and i'll be adding the remaining polls, but fyi once there's official confirmation the NUP has renamed back to Blue and White, we should split the table. Totalstgamer (talk) 20:37, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Into which constituents? We don’t know where Eisenkot is going, and nor have the polling companies set a ‘default scenario’ like in the case of Bennett’s standing. Docentation (talk) 21:13, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

Split the *table*, not the parties. The new iteration of the table would rename NUP back to B&W. I'll also update the appropriate party pages if i remember. Totalstgamer (talk) 21:55, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

We have a few new polls with Eisenkot as head of his own party; I assume they would go in the Scenario polls section: [1]. David O. Johnson (talk) 04:52, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes Totalstgamer (talk) 16:46, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Scenario polls

it is quite confusing and they are all based on different "states" of the main article (opposition bloc, inclusion of Bennett in said bloc, Noam/New Hope ect.)

Also we have basically 4 main scenarios:

1. Bennett and/or some other right-wing leader (Cohen, Gallant, Hendel, Levin, New Hope splits or a generic one) found a party
2. a merger of these like "Bennett & XY form a party", "Bennett (& XY) join JB" or similar
3. Labor+Meretz merger before it happened
4. Number 1 & Number 3 combined

@Totalstgamer, David O. Johnson, SecretName101, and Philosopher Spock: how should we handle it? Braganza (talk) 20:29, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

@Braganza What is the confusion/question about changing,, exactly? SecretName101 (talk) 21:08, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

generally the whole structure of it and apparently other users don't know either when to add polls to the scenario section even because they keep appearing in the main section Braganza (talk) 21:12, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

A pollster/news outlet typically will be relatively clear when publishing their polls which is the main scenario they were polling, and which polls were alternative scenarios.

At a certain point, some hypotheticals turn into the general scenario in later polls: because one-time hypotheticals morph into actualities. For instance, the one-time hypothetical of a Meretz-Labor merger became an actuality. SecretName101 (talk) 22:17, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

Maybe clearer groupings, like the four scenarios mentioned by Braganza, would help. David O. Johnson (talk) 22:59, 2 July 2025 (UTC)

@David O. Johnson Yep, the most cleanly we can group the scenarios. SecretName101 (talk) 00:48, 3 July 2025 (UTC)

UTJ - Opposition or non-government?

Hi,

I'm not sure whether we should place UTJ in the opposition or in the non-government section of the Seat projections subsection following their departure from the government.

Thoughts? David O. Johnson (talk) 04:57, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

• Their official statement said they're going into the opposition, but id wait 48 hours until it goes into effect before making any changes. We could also aggregate the news stories and see how they refer to UTJ's withdrawal Totalstgamer (talk) 08:37, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

• My assumption is that they're just going to leave the government, like Noam, and like what Otzmah Yehudit did during the last ceasefire, but that they wouldn't vote to bring down the government. That said, I don't think anyone knows right now. TimeEngineer (talk) 10:58, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

Since Shas said they will continue to support the government, i'd say UTJ & Shas should be support Braganza (talk) 12:32, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

It looks like UTJ is in the opposition, while Shas is not part of the government, but it will continue to be part of the coalition. [2]. David O. Johnson (talk) 05:04, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

UTJ and Shas still stand with Netanyahu regardless, they won't co-operate with the center-left. אקסינו (talk) 13:15, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Direct Polls

the table has not been updated since April Braganza (talk) 20:29, 17 July 2025 (UTC)

The page is clearly drifting away from what an Enwiki page should look like. gidonb (talk) 06:09, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Direct Polls should be merged with other polls. Shadow4dark (talk) 07:35, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

Absolutely! gidonb (talk) 07:59, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

last poll

@אקסינו: "מפלגת השלטון עלתה השבוע בשני מנדטים ל-26 ועוקפת את מפלגתו של נפתלי בנט שיורדת בשלושה מנדטים לכדי 22." i don't speak hebrew but this sounds to me (going by google translate) that Bennett lost 3 seats to 22, this would make far more sense than Likud growing by 4 seats when Eisenkot runs Braganza (talk) 17:50, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

@Braganza There are 2 polls in the source, one with Eisenkot and one without, I added both of them in the correct places. I can tell since I'm a native Hebrew speaker. אקסינו (talk) 19:26, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

This is the poll without Eisenkot: https://images.wcdn.co.il/f_auto,q_auto,w_1400/3/9/2/5/3925457-46.png

This is with: https://images.wcdn.co.il/f_auto,q_auto,w_1400/3/9/2/5/3925453-46.png אקסינו (talk) 19:27, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

@אקסינו it contradicts what is said in the text, either the graphs are wrong or the article and like i said it wouldn't make sense if Likud gains 4 seats when Eisenkot runs Braganza (talk) 19:53, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

@Braganza It's not contradicting anything, the text at the start is referring to the poll with Eisenkot, there's another poll without him because Eisenkot is not running, It's just theoretical. אקסינו (talk) 21:29, 24 July 2025 (UTC)

@אקסינו it can't be the case because Bennett only wins 18 seats in this poll Braganza (talk) 21:30, 24 July 2025 (UTC)