DIMONA (Realist English). Two days before Israel’s parliamentary elections on October 27, the campaign has boiled down to a battle for one electoral segment — disenchanted supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In Dimona, a remote town in the Negev desert that was a Likud bastion for decades, activists are going door to door campaigning for Netanyahu’s main rival — centrist Gadi Eisenkot and his party Yashar.
Dimona: the battle for undecided voters
In the 2022 elections, half of Dimona’s voters supported Likud. Now, according to polls, Yashar is running neck and neck with Likud. “We need change. Bibi must go,” said 74-year-old Yossi Assayag, who says he supported Likud for most of his life. “Bibi brought catastrophe to Israel.”
But not everyone is ready for change. “I will never betray Likud,” says pensioner Ruti Ohana, who has voted for the party since immigrating from North Africa more than 60 years ago. She believes Netanyahu is “head and shoulders above” his rivals and that the accusations against him over the October 7 attack are unfair.
According to the Viterbi Center at the Israel Democracy Institute, about 13% of Israeli voters have not yet decided. Among those who voted for Likud in 2022, only 55% say they will remain loyal to the party. “The fight is for undecided voters who understand we are in a crisis and are open to persuasion,” says Michal Elmalam Abu, a Dimona city council member elected on the Likud ticket who now heads Eisenkot’s campaign in the city.
Kiryat Shmona: war fatigue
In the north, in Kiryat Shmona, another traditional Likud stronghold, the discontent is of a different nature. The city, which was evacuated for more than a year after Hezbollah attacks, has still not fully recovered. Support for Netanyahu here has fallen from about 29% before the 2022 elections to about 17% in a poll conducted in early October for Agam Labs at the Hebrew University.
“I don’t want the lies to continue,” says 64-year-old Eti Ben-Shabat, who has always voted Likud, following family tradition. She points to Netanyahu’s unfulfilled promises to ensure security in the north and defeat Hezbollah.
Even a small decline in support in Kiryat Shmona and other strongholds could either tip the scales in favor of Eisenkot or strengthen the far-right parties that would support Netanyahu but demand more power in the coalition.
The Trump factor
A week before the election, US President Donald Trump publicly endorsed Netanyahu. However, as Politico notes, this belated endorsement is unlikely to save the prime minister. A Walla poll predicts Netanyahu’s bloc only 48 seats — 13 short of the 61 needed to form a government. “It is unlikely that Trump alone can help him make up such a significant gap when nothing else has worked,” said veteran pollster Dalia Scheindlin.
The 2026 elections are the first vote since the October 7, 2023 attack, which undermined Netanyahu’s reputation as “Mr. Security.” Disappointment in Likud’s traditional strongholds — in Dimona, where an Iranian missile wounded dozens in March, and in Kiryat Shmona, which endured evacuation and renewed shelling — reflects a deeper shift: voters who backed Likud out of family tradition or ideological loyalty are beginning to judge the party by results rather than affiliation.
However, Eisenkot also has no clear path to power. The race remains extremely tight, and the outcome depends on whether he can convert discontent with Netanyahu into votes — or whether the far-right parties, strengthened on the flank, will again bring the prime minister to power, but on tougher terms.
