Yesh Atid soars beyond Likud 27-22 in weekend poll after ‘Minimarket Law’ vote

Shas drops to four seats as 62% of public against bill, only 20% in favor

Yesh Atid would rise to 27 Knesset seats from its current 11, surpassing the Likud with 22 instead of the 30 it has now, if an election were held today, according to a Maariv poll released on Friday.

The spike in votes for chairman Yair Lapid’s party can likely be credited to matters of religion and state driving the agenda in recent days, with the “Minimarkets Law,” which passed last week, limiting new businesses from opening on Shabbat

Shas, which was behind the Minimarkets Law, only got four seats in the poll, down from seven, barely passing the 3.25% electoral threshold.

The Zionist Union dropped from 24 seats to 14, followed by Bayit Yehudi with 13, up from eight; the Joint List, down from 13 to 11; and Kulanu with nine instead of its current 10.

United Torah Judaism came in at eight seats, Meretz seven, and Yisrael Beytenu five.

Channel 2 aired a poll on Saturday night, in which the Likud kept its lead, albeit a narrow one. The poll gave the Likud 25 Knesset seats, Yesh Atid 24, the Zionist Union 16, the Joint List 12, Bayit Yehudi 11, UTJ seven, Kulanu seven, Yisrael Beytenu seven, Shas six and Meretz five.

According to the Maariv poll, the majority of the public, 62%, opposes the Minimarket Law, and only 20% support it.

Among secular people, 87% oppose and 6% support the Minimarket Law; and 64% of people who call themselves traditional oppose it, while 21% are in favor. Over a quarter (27%) of religious-Zionists are against the new law, while 46% favor it; and 12% of Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) oppose it while 65% support it.

The survey also asked about the three-year-old recording of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair, which was broadcast on Channel 2 News last week, in which he bragged about a visit to a strip club and the benefits of the government’s natural gas plan to his friend, the son of gas tycoon Kobi Maimon.

Asked whether it was appropriate to broadcast the tape, 44% said no and 40% yes.

Among right-wing voters 58% said it shouldn’t it have been aired, but only 32% of center-left voters agreed.

Asked what they thought was the worst part of the Yair Netanyahu tape, 28% thought it was use of his state-provided driver and bodyguard for his night on the town, 24% thought it was that he objectified women, 16% said the connection to the gas plan, and 10% said visiting a strip club.

A clear majority of the respondents, 62%, said the public should not fund personal security for prime ministers’ children. Among Likud voters, most (52%) supported the personal security, while in the general public only 24% did.

The poll was conducted online by Panels Politics on Wednesday among 572 respondents, and has a 4.3% margin of error.