Zionist Union unveils anti-Yesh Atid TV ad

The Zionist Union released a commercial on Tuesday that warns voters on the Center-Left not to cast ballots for Yesh Atid. Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog had been careful not to attack Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid throughout the campaign. But after polls indicated that Yesh Atid was rising at the Zionist Union’s expense, he said in speeches this week that a vote for Lapid was a vote for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “You voted Yair, you got Bibi, and then the government fell,” the ad says in a soccer chant. “If you vote Yair, then you’ll get Bibi again and everything will happen again all over.” The ad concludes with a message to Yesh Atid voters: “Don’t repeat your mistake from 2013. On March 17, we are replacing Bibi.” Lapid mocked the strategy in an interview with Channel 10 on Monday night, noting that the same day that Herzog started saying a vote for Lapid is a vote for Netanyahu, Bayit Yehudi said a vote for Yesh Atid is a vote for Herzog. A Panels Research poll broadcast Tuesday afternoon on the Knesset Channel found that 47 percent of undecided voters who are leaning toward casting ballots for the Zionist Union are also considering Yesh Atid. The poll found that if the election were held now, the Zionist Union would win 24 Knesset seats, the Likud 21 and Yesh Atid 14. It was the second poll released on Tuesday that gave Yesh Atid 14 seats. The Panels poll gave the Joint (Arab) List 13 seats, Bayit Yehudi 12, Kulanu nine, Shas seven, United Torah Judaism six, Meretz and Yisrael Beytenu five each, and Yahad four.