The final Israel election polls, released Friday, Oct. 23, 2026, show Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud. All three major TV surveys found neither political bloc with the 61 seats needed to govern ahead of Tuesday’s Knesset vote. Publishing new polls is now banned until exit polls are released at 10 p.m. on election day, The Times of Israel reported.
Channel 12, Channel 13 and Kan: the seat projections
Channel 12 (Midgam, Manu Geva; 1,018 respondents, 4.4% margin of error): Yashar 23, Likud 21, B’Yachad 15, the Democrats 10, Joint List 9, Yisrael Beytenu 8, Shas 8, Otzma Yehudit 8, United Torah Judaism 7, Religious Zionism 6 and Ra’am 5.
Channel 13 (Madad, Shmuel Rosner and Noah Slepkov; 1,875 respondents, 2.3% margin of error): Yashar 22, Likud 19, B’Yachad 14, the Democrats 10, Joint List 9, and 8 each for Yisrael Beytenu, Otzma Yehudit, United Torah Judaism and Religious Zionism, with 7 each for Shas and Ra’am.
Kan public broadcaster (Kantar, Dudu Hasid; 1,106 respondents, 3.0% margin of error): Yashar 22, Likud 20, B’Yachad 14, Joint List 9, the Democrats 8, Otzma Yehudit 8, Yisrael Beytenu 8, United Torah Judaism 8, Shas 7, Religious Zionism 7, Ra’am 5 and Yoaz Hendel’s Reservists 4.
All figures are as reported by The Times of Israel. The independent tracker israelielections.com lists the Channel 13 survey under a different pollster, with slightly different numbers. We used The Times of Israel’s figures, and readers should treat small differences between trackers with caution.
Bloc math: why no one reaches 61
The “change bloc” opposed to Netanyahu is made up of Yashar, B’Yachad, the Democrats and Yisrael Beytenu. It gets 56 seats from Channel 12, 54 from Channel 13 and 52 from Kan. Netanyahu’s coalition of Likud, Shas, Otzma Yehudit, United Torah Judaism and Religious Zionism gets 50 seats in all three polls.
The Arab-majority parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, get 14 seats from Channel 12 and Kan and 16 from Channel 13. Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas has said he is open to joining a change-bloc coalition, but several parties in that bloc have ruled out governing with Ra’am, The Times of Israel reported. In Kan’s poll, the Reservists’ four seats could matter, and Hendel has not publicly committed to either bloc.
The Times of Israel’s sister site, Zman Yisrael, released its final poll a day earlier. It showed the two Jewish-led blocs tied at 51 seats each, with 14 for the Arab-led parties and 4 for the Reservists.
How the polls moved in October
Lists of every published poll show the ranking held steady through the month. In surveys from Channel 12, Channel 13, Kan, Maariv and Israel Hayom, Yashar mostly landed between 20 and 24 seats and Likud between 18 and 21, according to the israelielections.com poll table. The pollster Shlomo Filber, working for Channel 14 and i24NEWS, was the exception: his Oct. 22 polls had Likud on top with 30 and 26 seats.
That gap between pollsters is the main uncertainty going into Tuesday. Our Oct. 12 analysis of whether Netanyahu can win found a similar bloc deadlock two weeks earlier.
Small parties near the 3.25% threshold
A party needs 3.25% of the national vote, roughly four seats, to enter the Knesset. In the final polls, Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party and Moti Leitner’s Charedi Public party both fell short. The Reservists were also below the line in the Channel 12 and Channel 13 polls. Winter and Leitner have said they will stay in the race despite pressure from Netanyahu and his allies to withdraw, The Times of Israel reported. Votes for lists that miss the threshold are effectively wasted, so a few hundredths of a percentage point could shift the bloc totals.
What the polls cannot say
Polls are estimates. Margins of error range from 2.3 to 4.4 percentage points in the final three surveys, and turnout operations in the final days, described by Ynet, could change the result. If no bloc can form a government, repeat elections would follow in early 2027. For the campaign’s final weekend, see our report on security and turnout before Oct. 27.
Sources
- The Times of Israel: Final polls before election show both blocs short of majority (Oct. 24, 2026)
- israelielections.com: Israel election polls 2026
- Votendi: Midgam Knesset poll (Oct. 23, 2026)
- Ynetnews: Final 100 hours before the election
- Wikipedia: Elections in Israel (electoral threshold)
Featured photo: Front of the Knesset, 2022. Photo: Clema12 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Read next in World News
Like this story? Get the newsletter
The day's Boston news, weather and local business in one short email, with links to the full stories.
Most read this week
- Iran–U.S. War Update: Trump Warns of ‘Finishing the Job’ as Hormuz Attacks Climb and Lavrov Visits Tehran
- Israeli Jets Fly to Iran Border in ‘Power Projection’ Before Election
- Keen Sword 27: U.S. and Japan Open Largest-Ever Island Defense Drills
- Keen Sword 27 Begins: U.S. and Japan Open Island Defense Drills Near Taiwan
- State of the U.S. Economy: Growth, Jobs, Prices and the Fed, Explained
Latest
- Business Report, Oct. 24, 2026: Moody’s Spares France, Alaska LNG Shake-Up
- German Foundation Gives Freedom Prize to Iranian People, With Reza Pahlavi as Trustee
- Leaving Netflix in November 2026: Fast & Furious, Speed, Chucky and More
- New Alien Movie in the Works From Prisoners Writer, With Ridley Scott Producing
- Sweden’s Government Offices Block ChatGPT and Claude, Steer Staff to Copilot