Strategists and pollsters call it “Bibi fatigue.” It’s irrelevant to the half of Israeli voters, who already loathe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it certainly applies to the other half, made up of his supporters or just people who think that he is a good prime minister. There is a creeping awareness among these voters who are not part of Netanyahu’s hard-core base that he has exhausted all he has to offer. They have grown tired of the cacophony surrounding him and the endless racket raised by him and his supporters. They are weary of the muck being slung in every direction and the personality cult surrounding that surrounds the prime minister. While some will not yet admit that they are ready for someone new in the office, they have their concerns.

It is exactly this phenomenon that Netanyahu is now fighting. The only person who could never suffer from “Bibi fatigue” is the man himself. He certainly isn’t exhausted. Even at 70, he has been crisscrossing the country at a killer pace. His previous two campaigns focused on intense online activity including Facebook videos and live social network broadcasts round the clock. This time, Netanyahu has decided to leave the web and go back to his roots, to go out into the field and breathe fresh life into his faltering camp, to spread his optimism and convince his supporters that the task in front of him is possible.

As part of this campaign, the Likud has been passing around polls showing that the Netanyahu camp is now approaching 61 seats. People tend to react to these polls with skepticism. The numbers have not been confirmed by independent polls. But the basic idea is obvious to everyone. Netanyahu isn’t fighting to reach 61 seats. He is fighting to prevent the opposing camp from achieving a Jewish majority. Netanyahu knows what Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz and Yisrael Beitenu leader Avigdor Liberman are planning. They want to win 54 seats, in the hope of leaving the right-wing/ultra-Orthodox bloc with just 53 seats. (According to all the polls, the Joint List would win the remaining 13.) This breakdown would allow Gantz to swear in a new government consisting of 54 seats, with the Joint List abstaining. Then Liberman could stick to his principles, something he was unable to do last time around. Netanyahu is fighting against that scenario. While the prospect of winning a 61-seat majority now seems like a lost cause, a Jewish majority is still possible.

Netanyahu is fighting to win every vote. He is investing enormous effort to win back the Ethiopian constituency, part of which abandoned him last time for Blue and White. He has managed to recruit an Ethiopian Knesset member from Blue and White while announcing that he plans to bring another 400 Ethiopian Jews to Israel who have waited years to immigrate. He went after the angry taxi drivers by putting the reforms proposed by the Ministry of Transportation and small businesses collapsing under the tax burden and bureaucracy by appointing a special adviser to focus on the issue. On Feb. 9, his government approved tens of millions of shekels in aid to the town of Ashkelon, which continues to suffer from rocket fire from Gaza. Every vote is important in Netanyahu's effort to preserve a Jewish majority. So he is using every ruse and dirty trick available and proving yet again that it is too early to eulogize him.