The final polls before the 2026 Israeli elections show that the Knesset is likely to fall into coalition deadlock after Tuesday’s vote.
The JC’s analysis of polling conducted by three of the country’s major broadcasters – Channels 11, 12 and 13 – predicts that neither the electoral bloc associated with incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor that of his main rival, Yashar’s Gadi Eisenkot, will reach the majority threshold of 61 Knesset seats.
Yashar is projected to be the largest party in the Knesset, with 22 of the 120 seats, ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud with 20.
Beyachad, the alliance between former prime ministers Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett, is set to come in distant third on 14, and at least seven other parties are expected to win between seven and nine seats each.
While Eisenkot is likely to lead the largest party in the Knesset, his path to forming a government is set to be trickier.
His bloc – Yashar, Beyachad, the Democrats and Yisrael Beiteinu – is projected to achieve 54 seats, seven short of a majority.
The most straightforward route to power would be to join up with the major Arab-Israeli parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, whose predicted 15 combined seats would put him over the top.
However, doing so would lose Eisenkot the support of Yisrael Beiteinu, whose leader, Avigdor Liberman, refuses to serve with the Arab parties, and its eight projected seats, dropping the bloc right onto the 61-seat majority threshold. Eisenkot has publicly ruled out this course of action.
Netanyahu’s bloc, meanwhile, is predicted to win 50 seats collectively and contains at least two parties – Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism – which would baulk at the inclusion of any Arab party.
With few other unaligned parties currently projected to win any seats, both blocs look set to run out of suitable coalition partners before they can solidify a majority.
President Isaac Herzog will give the leading candidate after the vote an opportunity to form a government and has the option to extend the invitation to their rival if they fail to do so.
But if neither side can hold a coalition together, Israel will be plunged into another election campaign within months – an outcome that Herzog has said he is keen to avoid, given the country has voted five times in the last seven years.
One solution floated in Hebrew media was for Eisenkot and Netanyahu to form a unity government together, but Eisenkot has ruled out any deal that sees Netanyahu serve as prime minister, while most leaders of the parties in his bloc have vowed not to enter any coalition including Likud if Netanyahu remains as leader.
Ultimately, unless complex coalition negotiations bear fruit soon, the polls suggest another vote could be on the cards, potentially in 2027.
For all the election latest, including live results, visit the JC’s election hub.
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