This week's election news was dominated by the two biggest parties' attempts to weaken each other, as Blue and White managed to revive the affair of Israel's submarine acquisitions, known as Case 3,000, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held up the alleged Iranian hack of Blue and White leader Benny Gantz's cellphone.
How has all of this affected voter leanings? According to the latest Israel Hayom-i24NEWS poll, it hasn't – at least not much. This week's poll projected 26 seats for the Likud, the same number as last week. Blue and White, however, lost three seats, dropping from 33 seats last week to 30.
The poll predicted nine seats for Labor, an increase of three seats from the party's showing in last week's poll. Meretz lost ground, dropping from nine seats to six.
The Hadash-Ta'al and Balad-Ra'am Arab parties were predicted to win a total of nine seats, which – assuming they would join a center-left coalition – give the Center-Left 54 seats. Even if MK Orly Levy-Abekasis's Gesher party, which this week passed the minimum electoral threshold in the polls for the first time, were to add its four projected seats to a center-left coalition, the bloc would still only number 58 seats.
In contrast, the poll predicted a total of 62 seats for a right-wing bloc with the haredi parties.
Despite the Supreme Court's decision this week to disqualify Otzma Yehudit candidate Michael Ben-Ari from running for the Knesset, the poll predicted seven seats for the Union of Right-Wing parties (Otzma Yehudit, National Union, and Habayit Hayehudi).
The New Right dropped one seat from last week and was predicted to win five seats. Far-right activist Moshe Feiglin's Zehut party continued to gain momentum, and the poll projected it would win six seats.
The poll also checked the public's response to Ben-Ari's disqualification. More than half (54%) said the Supreme Court was right to do so, whereas 46% said the court had made the wrong decision.
When asked whether or not they believed that the hack into Gantz's cellphone would affect his performance, 28% of respondents said they did not know. Of the respondents who had an opinion, 68% said they thought that the hacked cellphone would not affect Gantz's functioning, compared to 32% who thought it would.
The poll included 613 respondents in a representative sample of adults, with a margin of error of 4%.
