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Will Israeli Arabs come out to vote in September?

The numbers make clear that a change of regime and victory for the Blue and White in September elections can only be achieved by boosting voter turnout among Arabs, who represent double the vote potential than the ultra-Orthodox parties, which garnered 16 Knesset seats in the April vote.
An Israeli-Arab woman walks out from behind a voting booth as Israelis vote in a parliamentary election, at a polling station in Umm al-Fahm, Israel April 9, 2019. REUTERS/Ammar Awad - RC1F60560A00
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When the polls closed on April 9 in Israel, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz was quick to proclaim victory. Not so fast, however. When the pollster Camil Fuchs announced the results of his exit poll on Channel 13 News, Israelis grasped the true reality. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had won again. Fuchs turned Gantz's “victory speech” into the joke of the elections. Similarly, a poll Fuchs conducted for Channel 13 on May 30, the day after Israel’s shortest-ever Knesset voted to dissolve itself, does not signal a clear victory for Gantz and the center-left bloc in September elections for the 22nd Knesset.

Speaking with Al-Monitor, the veteran statistician said an analysis of all eligible votes in the April elections, including those cast for the New Right and Zehut, both of which failed to cross the electoral threshold, points to a significant advantage for the right-wing and ultra-Orthodox bloc. If the New Right and Zehut had received enough votes to get their candidates into the Knesset, the bloc would have held 68.5 of the 120 Knesset seats (instead of the 65 seats it received).

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