When tensions along the border with the Gaza Strip escalated in early March, the leadership of the Blue and White party traveled to the southern town of Ashdod to shore up support for its bid to oust the dominant Likud party from power. Videos of that campaign tour showed party Chair Lt. Gen. (Res.) Benny Gantz, along with two other decorated colleagues, Lt. Gen. (Res.) Moshe Ya’alon and Lt. Gen. (Res.) Gabi Ashkenazi, being welcomed warmly by local residents. Footage posted online showed the three former army chiefs, along with their partner Knesset member Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party, sitting in a coffee shop looking pleased with themselves. “You have the right to full security,” Gantz told residents. “We have three former army chiefs and Yair [Lapid] who was a member of the security Cabinet; we know what the military can do.”

Warm welcome notwithstanding, the publicized visit evidently did not convince Ashdod residents to vote Blue and White. The ruling Likud party remained the dominant political force in the port city, garnering almost 34% of the vote, as it did in the 2015 elections. Only 16% went for Blue and White. The results in all outlying areas in the country’s south and north were similar, with Likud surging well ahead of its newly minted rival.

Almost half (49%) of the residents of the northern Lebanon border town of Kiryat Shmona, for example, voted Likud and only 11% of the votes went to Gantz and his generals. Even an embarrassing October 2018 event during which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insulted a Kiryat Shmona resident who complained to him about the city’s poor health-care services did not dent the popularity of his Likud party. When the complainant, Orna Peretz, tried to interrupt a Netanyahu speech, he shut her up by saying, “You’re boring us,” setting off a media storm. Pundits predicted at the time that Kiryat Shmona would turn against the Likud. Netanyahu’s political rivals called Peretz and used the incident in their campaign propaganda as proof of the prime minister’s disdain for his voters. Peretz shifted her support to Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, a former Likud stalwart who heads the center-right Kulanu party.

The Blue and White leadership also traveled to Kiryat Shmona during the campaign, had its photos taken eating at a famous local falafel joint and being welcomed warmly by residents, just as they were in Ashdod. On election day, April 9, Kiryat Shmona stood by Netanyahu.