Netanyahu’s Likud Faces Historic Decline Ahead of Israeli Elections: Survey

Tel Aviv,
A new survey shows Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party facing a historic decline ahead of the country’s elections. According to the poll published by Maariv newspaper, Likud has dropped to 19 seats — its lowest level since May 2025.
The poll, published Friday, comes roughly six weeks before Israel’s general election on October 27. Maariv described the result as a “historic decline” for Netanyahu’s party. The survey was conducted by Lazar Research, headed by Menachem Lazar, in cooperation with the Panel 4 All Research platform.
The poll was carried out on September 9 and 10 among 4,329 respondents, with a margin of error of 4 percentage points. According to the results, if elections were held today, Likud would win 19 seats — down from 21 seats in a survey conducted on Monday. Maariv noted this is the party’s weakest showing since May 29, 2025.
By contrast, former Army Chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party remained the largest party in the survey with 25 seats, unchanged from Monday’s poll. The results come three days after Israeli parties submitted their candidate lists for the Knesset elections.
At the bloc level, parties in the current governing coalition would win 50 seats, while opposition parties would win 58 seats. Arab parties would take the remaining 12 seats. At least 61 seats are needed to form a government in the 120-seat Knesset.
Netanyahu’s popularity has declined sharply as a result of recent wars, compounded by his ongoing corruption cases. While Netanyahu managed to use the wars as a pretext to delay elections, those same wars have also been a key factor turning public opinion against him.