GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ - With just a week before Israeli voters go to the polls, the Likud Party's Ariel Sharon continues to keep his lead over incumbent Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The latest Gallup Israel poll, conducted January 29 for the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv, shows Sharon with 52% support among those polled, while Barak's support now stands at 32%, essentially unchanged from the 30% he received a week ago.
Sharon's supporters appear to be strongly committed to his campaign. When asked to rate their likelihood of voting for Sharon, 31% of his supporters said they were "100% likely." By comparison, just 21% of Barak's supporters expressed the same level of confidence in their support.
There continues to be strong support for Barak to yield his position on the Labor Party ticket to former Prime Minister Shimon Peres. If that were to happen, Israelis would split equally between the two, with 45% supporting each candidate. This represents a gain for Peres in the past week -- when given that hypothetical choice between Sharon and Peres on January 22, 47% said they would vote for Sharon and 43% for Peres.
Survey Methods
The results below are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,302 Israeli adults, 18 years and older, conducted Jan. 29, 2001. For results based on this sample, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
If the elections for Israel's PM were to be held today, and
the candidates were Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, who would you have
voted for?
1. Ehud Barak - 32.1%
2. Ariel Sharon - 52%
3. Blank note - 2%
4. Will not vote - 8.2%
5. Refused - 5.7%
How likely are you to vote for Ehud Barak, on a scale of
1-100%?
0% - 49.5%
1%-50% - 18.4%
51%-80% - 5%
81%-99% - 2.5%
100% - 21%
How likely are you to vote for Ariel Sharon, on a scale of
1-100%?
0% - 35.7%
1%-50% - 14.6%
51%-80% - 8.9%
81%-99% - 6.1%
100% - 30.8%
How likely are you to vote on elections day - February 6th,
assuming that the candidates would be Ehud Barak and Ariel
Sharon?
1. Very likely - 62.5%
2. Somewhat likely - 18.7%
3. Somewhat unlikely - 6.4%
4. Not likely - 10.2%
5. DK - 2.2%
If Shimon Peres were to replace Ehud Barak as a candidate,
who would you vote for?
1. Shimon Peres - 45.5%
2. Ariel Sharon - 45.6%
3. Blank note - 1.4%
4. Will not vote - 3.7%
5. Refused -3.9%
How likely are you to vote on elections day - February 6th,
assuming that the candidates would be Shimon Peres and Ariel
Sharon?
1. Very likely - 68.7%
2. Somewhat likely - 19.2%
3. Somewhat unlikely - 4.4%
4. Not likely - 6.5%
5. DK - 1.2%
Regardless of your political opinions, who do you think will
win the elections?
1. Ehud Barak - 10.5%
2. Ariel Sharon - 77.4%
3. DK - 12.2%
And if the candidates were Shimon Peres and Ariel Sharon, who
do you think will win the elections?
1. Shimon Peres - 29.3%
2. Ariel Sharon - 55.4%
3. DK - 15.3%
