A new poll out tonight from GLZ Radio shows Herzog's Zionist Union party with a 3 seat lead over Netanyahu's Likud.
The GLZ (i.e. Army) projection is consistent with a Knesset Channel poll released Tuesday morning, which also showed Herzog leading Netanyahu, 24 to 21. Meanwhile, a Channel 2 poll Tuesday evening showed the center-left party with an even larger 25-21 seat lead. (See
this diary for details).
Until this latest round of polling, pundits in both countries were clamoring to proclaim that Bibi's speech to Congress had propelled him to a lead. That argument, which never had much empirical merit to begin with, now appears wholly discredited. Indeed, according to the data tracked by the Haaretz Election Center*, this is the first time in at least 12 weeks that three consecutive polls have projected Zionist Union beating Likud by three or more seats. Granted, most Israeli polls have a 4-5 point margin of error (though the aforementioned Knesset Channel poll doubled its usual sample size, and boasts an MoE of only 3); there's still a week of campaigning left to go, and Adelson is pumping money into the race like oxygen at his casino. So any celebration would be very premature. Still, this latest polling boomlet shows a center-left lead that is both significant and real. At the very least, proclamations of a Bibi/Boehner transatlantic game-changer have been revealed as pure fantasy: in terms of electoral impact, Netanyahu's speech to Congress was as fruitless as it was foul.
*(note that at the present moment, the Haaretz tracker has not yet added the latest GLZ results).
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On an entirely different note...perhaps it's the late hour, but being unable to read a lick of Hebrew, this GLZ Radio twitter feed just totally cracks me up:
Love it.