The Israel election results 2026 began to take shape on Tuesday night, 27 October 2026, when the first exit polls were published after polling stations closed at 10 p.m. local time. The projections, reported by Israel's main television broadcasters and carried by international outlets, point to the same central finding: Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party is projected to finish first, but neither of the country's two main political blocs is close to the 61 seats needed to form a government in the 120-seat Knesset. The Israel election results 2026 are trending per news coverage, with Google Trends listing "israel election results" among its active searches, but the numbers published so far are projections, not the official count. No winner has been declared, and the official results will follow over the coming days as ballots are counted and checked.
That distinction matters more than usual in this election. It is Israel's first national election since the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 and the wars that followed in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and it was widely described during the campaign as a verdict on Netanyahu's leadership. Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister with 19 years in office across non-consecutive terms, faced a challenge from a rival alliance led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces whose centrist Yashar party led Likud in several final opinion polls. The exit polls suggest Likud did better on election day than those final polls expected, while still leaving Netanyahu's bloc well short of a majority. The result, if the projections hold, is a parliament in which the balance of power may rest with parties outside either main bloc, and in which weeks or months of coalition talks are likely.
Israel Election Results 2026: What the Exit Polls Actually Show
The broadcasters do not agree on every seat, but they agree on the shape of the result. Channel 12, in its first exit poll at 10:01 p.m. Israel time, projected Likud at 24 seats and Eisenkot's Yashar at 22, according to reporting of the poll by The Times of Israel. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad, or Together, party was projected third with 12 seats, followed by the Arab-led Joint List with 11. Channel 12 put the Jewish-led parties opposed to Netanyahu at 52 seats, the parties supporting him at 50, and Arab-led parties at 18, a record for that sector. Those three figures add up to the full 120 seats in the Knesset.
Channel 13's first exit poll, also released at 10:01 p.m., gave slightly different party totals but the same bloc picture. It projected Likud at 25 seats and Yashar at 23, B'Yachad third with 14 and the Joint List fourth with 10. Its bloc projection was 53 seats for the anti-Netanyahu camp, 50 for Netanyahu's right-wing and religious bloc, and 17 for Arab-led parties. Fox News, reporting the three main broadcasters' projections together, put Likud at 25 seats, Yashar at 23 in the Channel 12 and Channel 13 polls and 21 according to the public broadcaster Kan, with the parliamentary balance at 50 seats for Netanyahu's bloc, 53 for the main opposition parties and 17 for Arab parties. Readers comparing reports should therefore expect small differences of one or two seats between broadcasters, and should watch the bloc totals rather than any single party figure.
Across the six exit polls summarised in Israeli reporting, Likud was projected at between 24 and 30 seats and Yashar at between 19 and 23, with five of the six putting Netanyahu's bloc at 50 to 55 seats and the change bloc at 49 to 53. One outlier, Channel 14, was reported as giving Netanyahu's bloc 60 seats. That outlier underlines why the first exit polls should be read as a range, not a final tally: a shift of one or two seats can matter greatly when parties are fighting to cross the electoral threshold or when a bloc is a handful of seats from 61, and exit polls are often revised during the night as more data arrives.
Two smaller parties were projected to fall short of the 3.25 percent threshold needed to enter the Knesset in the confirmed exit polls: the non-aligned Reservists, led by Yoaz Hendel, and Ofer Winter's right-wing People of Israel. Their exclusion matters because votes for parties below the threshold do not translate into seats, which raises the effective bar for the remaining parties. The final pre-election polls, published on Friday 23 October before Israel's legal blackout on polling, had told a different story about the order of the two largest parties. According to Haaretz, Channel 12's final poll had Yashar at 23 and Likud at 21, Channel 13 had Yashar at 22 and Likud at 19, and Kan had Yashar at 22 and Likud at 20. Likud therefore appears to have outperformed its final polls, while the opposition's bloc lead narrowed in the exit polls compared with those surveys.
Israel Election Results 2026: Why Turnout at 74.3 Percent Matters
Turnout was a major part of the story long before the exit polls arrived. By 2 p.m., 44.9 percent of eligible voters, about 3.29 million people, had cast a ballot, according to the Central Elections Committee, which said the figure had crossed all its records for that hour. At noon, turnout stood at 31.5 percent, the highest at that point of the day in 53 years, and among serving soldiers 48 percent had voted by 1 p.m., compared with 44.4 percent at the same hour in 2022. By 4 p.m., turnout had reached 55.7 percent, the highest recorded at that hour in the country's history. By 8 p.m., two hours before polls closed, national turnout stood at 74.3 percent, or 5,449,277 voters, according to Central Elections Committee figures cited by the BBC. That compared with 66.3 percent at the same hour in the 2022 election, and it was described as the highest rate at that point in the day since 1988.
About 7.3 million Israelis were eligible to vote, including 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, and they were choosing all 120 members of the Knesset. The high turnout was expected to cut both ways. Analysts noted before election day that a larger electorate raises the effective bar for smaller parties, several of which sit inside Netanyahu's coalition, while stronger turnout in Arab communities could translate into a record number of seats for Arab parties. The exit polls are consistent with that second expectation: Arab-led parties were projected at 17 to 18 seats, ahead of their pre-election range of 14 to 16. Before election day, a Kan analysis had found about 65 percent of Arab voters saying they intended to vote, compared with roughly 53 percent actual Arab turnout in the last election, while stated intent among ultra-Orthodox voters was lower than their turnout last time. Those were forecasts and stated intentions, not measured results, but the record Arab seat totals in the exit polls point in the same direction.
Turnout alone does not decide who governs. In Israel's proportional system, voters elect parties, not a prime minister directly, and seats are allocated in proportion to each party's share of the national vote, subject to the threshold. A high turnout can therefore change the composition of the Knesset without giving any bloc a majority, which is what the exit polls suggest has happened. The Arab parties' projected total is the clearest example: 17 or 18 seats would give them more weight in any coalition arithmetic than they held before, even though they are counted separately from both main blocs in several broadcasters' tallies.
Why 61 Seats Decide Everything in the Knesset
The number that governs everything after election day is 61: a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. A party must win at least 3.25 percent of the national vote to enter parliament at all, and a government needs the backing of at least 61 members. The exit polls put Netanyahu's bloc at about 50 seats, roughly 11 short of that mark, and Eisenkot's bloc at 52 or 53, roughly eight or nine short. That is why the headline "Likud largest party" does not settle the question of who becomes prime minister. As one report of the exit polls put it, it is the bloc totals that ultimately matter, because the president asks the lawmaker with the best chance of assembling a majority to try to form a government, not simply the leader of the largest single party.
The scale of the change from 2022 is also part of the story. Netanyahu's coalition won 64 seats in the 2022 elections. If the exit polls are close to the final result, that coalition would have shed 14 seats. Eisenkot's bloc, by contrast, would have moved ahead of Netanyahu's bloc without itself reaching a majority. That leaves three broad paths, all of which were discussed in reporting before and after the exit polls: a minority government that governs with outside support from Arab parties, a unity government that includes Likud, or a return to the polls if no workable coalition can be formed. None of those paths is straightforward. Eisenkot has publicly refused to serve under Netanyahu, including in a rotation agreement in which the two leaders would alternate as prime minister, saying he would resign if such an arrangement were reached. Opposition sources quoted in reporting also described options ranging from a coalition that includes the Arab party Ra'am, to a minority government with outside Arab party support, to a unity government that includes Likud. Which, if any, of those options is viable will depend on the final seat counts and on whether the parties involved are willing to work together.
The formal process begins once the final results are certified. President Isaac Herzog will consult the leaders of the elected parties before tasking the lawmaker he believes has the best chance of forming a government. That candidate will have 28 days to assemble a coalition, with a possible 14-day extension. If those efforts fail, a second party leader may be given 28 days, without an extension, to try, and if that attempt also falls short, a majority of 61 members of the Knesset can request that the president assign the task to a particular lawmaker within a further 21-day period. Until a new government is formed, Netanyahu could remain in office as caretaker prime minister, which is why the uncertainty after this election could extend for weeks or even months even though the votes themselves were cast in a single day.
What the Leaders Said, and Why Exit Polls Can Be Wrong
The first reactions after the exit polls reflected the same split as the numbers: encouragement in the opposition camp, and no concession of defeat from the governing camp. Eisenkot said the results "express a complete loss of confidence in Netanyahu" and added that "if these are the final results, they would mark a victory." Opposition leader Yair Lapid called them a "tough defeat" for Netanyahu's bloc. Those are political readings of projections, not statements about the official count, and they were reported as such. Netanyahu's campaign had centred on his wartime leadership and his alliance with United States President Donald Trump, who endorsed him and joined Israel in waging war on Iran. Netanyahu said on Sunday that Trump was prepared to act again to remove the Iranian threat, but only if Netanyahu remained in power. Eisenkot, a security hawk who has accused Netanyahu of relying on fear-mongering, said he was confident Trump would work in full cooperation with any leader chosen by the people. Voters were therefore asked to weigh competing claims about security, accountability for the October 7 attacks, and Israel's deepening international isolation, and the exit polls suggest the electorate split almost evenly between the two camps.
There are good reasons to treat the first exit polls with caution. Israeli exit polls have a mixed record in close races. In 2015, exit polls showed Likud and Isaac Herzog's Zionist Union roughly tied at 27 or 28 seats each, and both camps claimed victory, before the final result gave Likud 30 seats and the Zionist Union 24, a six-seat gap no exit poll had foreseen. Exit polls are also revised during the night as more data arrives, and the official count takes longer: votes are counted by hand at more than 12,000 polling stations, and an estimated 600,000 absentee ballots, almost all from soldiers and making up around 10 percent of the vote, will not be fully counted until Thursday, according to reporting of the count timetable. Small parties near the 3.25 percent line will be watched especially closely until that count is done, because a party crossing or missing the threshold can move several seats between blocs.
For readers following the Israel election results 2026, the practical advice is to watch for three things in the coming days. First, the official count and any revisions to the exit-poll seat projections, particularly for parties near the threshold. Second, the final bloc totals once Arab parties are counted on a consistent basis, since different tallies group them differently and that choice changes whether Eisenkot's bloc appears to lead by a little or by more. Third, the statements from party leaders and from President Herzog about who will be asked to form a government. Until those steps happen, the safest summary of Tuesday night is the one the broadcasters themselves offered: Likud is projected to be the largest party, no bloc has a clear path to 61 seats, and the next government is not yet decided.
What Happens Next After the Israel Election Results 2026 Exit Polls
The immediate next step is the count. Official results were expected to start appearing during the night, with the absentee count continuing until Thursday and the final certified result following after that. Once the results are certified, the president's consultations begin, and the 28-day clock for forming a coalition starts for the lawmaker chosen to try first. If that attempt fails, the process moves through the further stages described above, and the possibility of another election cannot be ruled out if negotiations fail. That timeline is why reporting on Tuesday night stressed that forming a workable coalition could take substantially longer than counting the votes, and why the election, although decided by voters in one day, may not produce a new government for weeks or months.
The wider context will also shape what happens next. The election took place against a tense security backdrop, with reports in Israeli and United States media about disagreements inside Israel's security establishment over possible military action involving Iran before the election. Those reports were disputed in part by the prime minister's office and are not confirmed, and they should not be read as part of the election result. What is confirmed is that Israelis voted in record numbers, that the exit polls project a fragmented Knesset, and that the two main blocs both fall short of a majority. The campaign ended on a sharp note, with each side warning that the other would be a catastrophe for the country, and the high turnout suggests voters took that choice seriously, even if they did not agree on the answer.
For background on how the day began, see Israel Election 2026 Voting Day: Polls Open as Netanyahu Fights for Survival, which reported the record turnout through the afternoon and the final polls that put Yashar ahead of Likud before voting began. For the pre-election deadlock that shaped the campaign, see Israel Election 2026: Netanyahu vs Eisenkot Deadlock. Both articles explain the coalition arithmetic that the exit polls have now brought into sharper focus: a parliament of 120 seats, a threshold of 3.25 percent, and a majority line of 61 that neither bloc has yet reached. Worldlession will update this story as official results are confirmed and as the coalition process begins.
Sources: Channel 12 and Channel 13 first exit polls, 27 October 2026, as reported by The Times of Israel and summarised by NewsCubby; Fox News reporting on 27 October 2026 of the Channels 12 and 13 and Kan 11 exit polls; The Sun reporting on 27 October 2026 of the Channel 12 exit poll and Central Elections Committee turnout figures; Reuters reporting on 27 October 2026 on Netanyahu's political survival (Steven Scheer and Pesha Magid); BBC live coverage of Central Elections Committee turnout figures (74.3 percent at 8 p.m., 5,449,277 voters); Anash.org reporting on 27 October 2026 of exit-poll ranges and leaders' reactions; Devdiscourse / ANI reporting on 27 October 2026 on the presidential mandate process (28 days, plus a possible 14-day extension).