Right after they, the leaders of Amcha Yisrael, announced their entry into the fray, they explained that they did not accept offers from the Likud to abandon their party and take reserved slots in the Likud, nor would they join up with other existing politicians and platforms because the people want something new, and they did not want to join toether with anyone connected to the failures that led to the massacre of October 7. 

That makes sense, and this is an apparoach I actually value and think is worthy of supporting.

I think it was the next day, maybe two days later, Vinter gave in to extreme pressure from Netanyahu and Smotritch and promised that he would support Netanyahu and only Netanyahu for Prime Minister. Netanyahu and pothers in the Likud were attacking Vinter and saying he would be "Bennet 2.0" and bring down the Right and support the Left and Eisenkot, etc. To counter that Vinter announced he would support Netanyahu and not bring the Left to power.

Now, it was kind of obvious that unless something unusual and unexpected would happen, Vinter all along was going to eventually support Netanyahu. nobody expects him to win enough seats to become Prime Minister, so eventually it would come down to making a choice, and Vinter is unabashely on the Right side of the map in Israel (from a security perspective - I dont know much about what thinks on other issues). I think it is obvious he would eventually choose to recommend Netanyahu for Prime Minister. But then he said it, and just a day after saying he wanted nothing to do with anyone connected to the failures of October 7. Later he clarified that a bit saying that he wont team up with anyone and run together on a list with anyone connected to October 7, Israel wants new and fresh faces, etc... but being on the Right, Netanyahu is his only choice for PM just because that's what there is available now. 

Despite Vinter saying explicitly that he would only support Netanyahu for PM, Netanyahu and the Likud, and other Right parties have only attacked Vinter, trying to get him to drop out of the race. Even today, after Vinter submitted his official party list (with no "joint" arrangement), both the Likud and Smotritch have attacked him and are pressuring him to drop out.

So, Vinter announcing at the start that he would support only Netanyahu has not helped relieve himself from their attacks. I am not sure why he would even want to support Netanyahu considering the relentless pressure they are putting on him, and even blaming him for their eventual loss, if they will lose to Eisenkot or anyone else. But he is. 

I am not sure with Netanyahu's approach to Vinter. Some polls have him crossing the threshold and some have him failing to cross - I guess he is borderline according to the average poll. If Netanyahu takes the approach to ravage votes away from Vinter (as the reports say he is trying to do), Vinter will likely not pass the threshold and then the [tens of? hundreds of?] thousands of votes he does get will surely be a waste, but if Netanyahu would just let him run his campaign and maybe even encourage some to vote for him, he probably only needs a slight boost, and then Netanyahu has those mandates in his corner. Supporting Vinter seems to me to be a better move for Netanyahu, but he seems to be taking the opposite approach, which seems less sensible to me.

So even though it seems obvious, at least to me, that Vinter would eventually support Netanyahu for PM, I think he should have kept quiet about it for now and let it play out until closer to the elections or even until after the elections, and then he could have a stronger negotiating position for more influence in the government to be formed (if Netanyahu would win). I think a lot of the people who like Vinter want new faces in politics do not or will not like that he caved so early to support Netanyahu publicly, and will continue to not like that despite being attacked relentlessly by Netanyahu (et al) continues to support him publicly.

I think this was Vinter's early mistake, and I think it is a significant one, and I think it will hurt him.