Exhibit A: opinion polls are driving Israel’s most significant recent political shift–the creation of the Center Party. Disgruntled politicians from the country’s two leading parties looked at poll numbers and decided last January that a new centrist grouping had a chance of breaking years of paralyzing stalemate between Labor and Likud. Polls also determined the choice of a candidate. Months before he retired from active military service, Israeli armed forces chief of staff Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak became a serious contender for prime minister on the strength of a few polls that showed him defeating Netanyahu handily in a two-man race. But Lipkin-Shahak faded fast after formally declaring himself a candidate for prime minister in January–and when it came time to choose the nominee of the fledgling Center Party later that month, he deferred to Yitzhak Mordechai. A poll gave Mordechai, Netanyahu’s former defense minister, a lead of less than one percentage point over Lipkin-Shahak.
The same numbers that induced the Center Party’s birth still shape its message. Recent surveys have consistently shown Mordechai beating Netanyahu by as much as 13 percent in a runoff election. But those same polls say that Mordechai won’t get to a runoff because he’s running a distant third behind Barak and Netanyahu. So the Center Party is now urging Barak supporters to desert the Labor Party leader because only Mordechai can “win big” over the incumbent–all according to the polls.
The accuracy of the canvassing may be improving. Gallup Israel claims that a new voting-simulation technique, “computer-assisted personal interviewing,” represents a quantum leap forward. One politician who isn’t completely sold is the incumbent. “I always lose in the polls and win in the elections,” Netanyahu repeats. No survey can fully overcome the tendency of some Israelis to talk one way and vote another.
