Final polls give Netanyahu’s bloc either 50 seats or a 62-seat majority, while candidates across the political spectrum worry about turnout, wasted votes, and the alliances needed to govern
At Gadi Eisenkot’s final campaign rally Sunday night, Matan Kahana, a Yashar candidate and former religious services minister, described “lots of energy, lots of people who know we are going to win.” Asked how many seats the party would take, he did not hedge: “Over 30 mandates. That will be the great surprise of the elections.”
Over 30 mandates. That will be the great surprise of the elections.
Yashar’s final campaign rally, Oct. 25, 2026. (Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line)
Kahana’s prediction was considerably higher than Yashar’s final poll numbers. But with Israelis preparing to vote Tuesday, the party was determined to turn its lead over Likud into an advantage substantial enough to help Eisenkot form the next government.
On October 27, Israelis will choose the members of the country’s 120-seat Knesset in the first national election since the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023. Voters select party lists, not a prime minister. After the results are published, President Isaac Herzog will consult the elected parties and decide which lawmaker gets the first opportunity to assemble a government. Although a parliamentary majority requires 61 seats, a government can take office with fewer if it wins a confidence vote with sufficient support or abstentions from parties outside the coalition.
The final surveys offered sharply different forecasts. Polls released Friday, October 23, by Channel 12, Channel 13, and Kan gave Yashar between 22 and 23 seats, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud between 19 and 21, and former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid’s B’Yachad between 14 and 15.
Netanyahu’s bloc—comprising Likud, the ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, Otzma Yehudit, and Religious Zionism-Zehut—received 50 seats in all three surveys. The four principal Zionist opposition parties—Yashar, B’Yachad, The Democrats, and Yisrael Beitenu—drew between 52 and 56 seats. The predominantly Arab Joint List and Ra’am, counted separately from both blocs, received a combined 14 to 16 seats. Kan also projected four seats for the Reservists-Economic Party, which was not included in either major bloc.
Channel 14’s final poll, published Thursday, October 22, presented a strikingly different picture, giving Likud 30 seats and Netanyahu’s bloc a 62-seat majority.
Even in the surveys showing Yashar ahead, the principal Zionist opposition parties remained short of a parliamentary majority. Cooperation with Arab parties, a minority government supported from outside the coalition, or an arrangement involving parties from across the political divide could therefore determine who governs.
At Sunday’s rally, Eisenkot urged supporters not to assume Netanyahu had already been defeated. The former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff argued that a narrow lead would not be enough. “Netanyahu wants a tie,” Eisenkot said. “Only then will he be able to claim that he needs to remain in office.” He appealed directly to Likud voters who work and serve in the military, telling them that Likud, rather than they, had abandoned its path. “Israel cannot continue like this,” he said. “Israel needs change. Look me in the eye. You can trust me.”
Israel needs change. Look me in the eye. You can trust me.
Eisenkot promised that a government under his leadership would establish a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 attack, advance a universal service law, and begin implementing plans for the rehabilitation and development of Israel’s north and south. First, however, he wants to make Yashar the largest party, strengthening his claim to lead the next government.
That strategy has created friction within the opposition. Democrats chairman Yair Golan argued Monday that campaigning for the largest individual party was a “dangerous lie,” because replacing Netanyahu requires maximizing the combined strength of the opposition parties. Eisenkot responded that the parties disagreed over leadership but said the dispute would not prevent cooperation after the election.
Democrats lawmaker Efrat Rayten told The Media Line that her party was “tense and optimistic.” She said the vote would decide Israel’s security, democracy, character, and continuity, and pointed to support among young people and the tens of thousands of Israelis who, she said, had returned from abroad to vote.
Demcrats lawmaker Efrat Rayten. (Elad Malka)
Rayten outlined plans to rebuild democratic institutions and international relationships, pursue diplomatic agreements, rehabilitate education, enshrine liberal rights, and fight racism and Kahanism. She also committed The Democrats to seeking the inclusion of an Arab party in the next governing coalition, a position that distinguishes it from several other major opposition parties whose leaders have resisted relying on Arab parties to form a government.
Her priorities also include promoting equality, combating organized crime in Arab communities, fighting terrorism, including attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians, and strengthening ties with Diaspora Jewry. She called for ending what she described as the war fronts opened by Netanyahu. “The Israeli public sanctifies life and peace,” Rayten said. An election victory, she added, would give the country “a tailwind to repair and rebuild.”
B’Yachad is making a different case, emphasizing experience and the ability to govern from day one. Lapid told The Media Line that the party was experiencing “a wave of support” because voters wanted “professional management and real working plans.” He said his experience in previous campaigns taught him what momentum felt like and maintained that the late movement toward B’Yachad was genuine. “Israelis heard Netanyahu directly tell them that if he is reelected, things will get worse for our economy and our security,” Lapid said. “That is what is at stake on Tuesday.”
B’Yachad candidate Eitan Ginzburg, a former communications minister and former mayor of Ra’anana, described the ticket as a team of former prime ministers, ministers, mayors, and senior executives ready to implement prepared plans. “We come in and start working,” he told The Media Line. Ginzburg, who left Benny Gantz after seven years of political partnership, said he concluded that Blue and White’s path could no longer produce the change he believed was required.
B’yachad candidate Eitan Ginzburg and party leader Naftali Bennett. (Courtesy)
He also argued that a new government could repair Israel’s strained foreign relationships without sacrificing security interests. Ginzburg called for stronger engagement with Latin America and said Iran must not be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. On confronting the Iranian regime, he added, “It is better to talk less and act more.”
Likud, by contrast, is closing its campaign with an ideological warning. Likud lawmaker Boaz Bismuth told The Media Line that he was “alert and worried,” calling Tuesday’s vote the most consequential election he had followed since becoming politically active as a young man. “This is not a slogan. It is the truth,” he said. Bismuth defended Likud’s “Right or Palestine” campaign line, arguing that the danger was a left-wing government dependent on Arab parties, even as Israeli society itself had moved further right.
Likud lawmaker Boaz Bismuth. (Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line)
I did not know that the human body could produce so many tears
Bismuth said the past four years had reinforced his belief that Israel must abandon repeated rounds of containment and seek decisive outcomes against its enemies. Yet he rejected descriptions of Israelis as irreparably divided. Soldiers from the right and left, religious and secular, had fought together, he noted, without the political confrontations seen away from the battlefield. Then his answer turned personal. After October 7 and the years that followed, he said, “I did not know that the human body could produce so many tears.”
For the parties to Likud’s right, the concerns are more immediate: getting supporters to the polls and ensuring that Netanyahu does not abandon his current partners in favor of a broader coalition.
If the right stays home, I am very worried
Religious Zionism lawmaker Simcha Rothman said he had dismissed surveys placing his party below the electoral threshold. His fear was that weak polling numbers could discourage supporters and become a self-fulfilling prediction. “If the right comes out to vote, I am very calm,” Rothman told The Media Line. “If the right stays home, I am very worried.”
Religious Zionism lawmaker Simcha Rothman. (Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line)
Rothman said four years in government had shown that cooperation within the national camp was essential and that internal boycotts and public quarrels weakened it. “In the end, you have to run a country, not hold demonstrations,” he said. Speaking to an American audience, he described Religious Zionism-Zehut as “the closest thing you can find to the Republican Party in Israel.”
Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Yitzhak Kroizer is worried about what Netanyahu might do after the election. He warned that Netanyahu could return as prime minister and form a broad unity government with Eisenkot, leaving National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir outside the coalition. Kroizer argued that voting for Likud could help Netanyahu remain in office without necessarily securing a government committed to the policies of the right. A vote for Ben Gvir, he said, was intended to achieve both.
Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kroizer. (Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line)
Kroizer described Otzma Yehudit as a difficult coalition partner by design, willing to confront military, intelligence, and legal officials when it believes they are obstructing its policies. He said Ben Gvir wants the Defense Ministry in order to conquer Gaza, encourage Palestinian emigration, reestablish Israeli communities there, dismantle the Palestinian Authority, and end the Oslo framework. Kroizer predicted his party could reach double digits, giving it enough influence to constrain Netanyahu’s coalition choices.
The fight over votes for smaller parties has added another layer of pressure. Under Israel’s 3.25% electoral threshold, votes cast for lists that fail to enter the Knesset are excluded from the allocation of seats, potentially affecting the balance between the blocs.
According to Channel 12, Netanyahu personally called Moti Leitner, leader of the Haredi Public party, while his associates held meetings intended to persuade Leitner to withdraw. Separately, Ofer Winter’s Amcha Yisrael party said Netanyahu and Religious Zionism chairman Bezalel Smotrich had met with Rabbi Eli Sadan, Winter’s spiritual mentor, in an effort to convince Winter to leave the race. Both party leaders rejected the pressure and insisted they would remain candidates.
The final Channel 12, Channel 13, and Kan polls placed both parties below the threshold, although Winter had come close in earlier surveys. Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha’s joint list, the Reservists-Economic Party, faced similar uncertainty: Kan projected it would win four seats, while Channel 12 and Channel 13 placed it below the threshold.
Netanyahu has sharpened his warnings about the consequences of defeat. On Sunday, he shared an AI-generated image depicting a nuclear explosion over Tel Aviv, circulating a warning originally written by commentator Yuval Bloomberg about the existential danger Iran could pose if Israel chooses a leader unable to confront it.
His opponents are asking voters to consider a different set of dangers: unequal military service, an unaffordable cost of living, damaged democratic institutions, and the absence of a full accounting for the failures surrounding October 7, the deadliest day in Israel’s history.
At Eisenkot’s rally, Yashar candidate and former minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen declined to predict how many seats her party would win. She offered a different number instead. Yashar had to finish clearly ahead of Likud, she said, and the opposition bloc needed to reach “62 or 63” seats to put Eisenkot in a strong position to form the next government.
Kahana was predicting a breakthrough for Yashar. Farkash-Hacohen was looking beyond her party’s tally to the numbers needed to govern. The difference between those two calculations could determine whether Eisenkot’s election-night celebrations lead to a new government.
