Israel Election 2026: Polls, Parties and When Results Come

Israelis vote on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026, in a national election that many in the country describe as the most consequential in its history. It is the first general election since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, which killed about 1,200 people in Israel, according to The Guardian. The vote will decide whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stays in power. U.S. interest is high, in part because President Donald Trump has publicly endorsed Netanyahu, and an Al Jazeera explainer on the vote ranked among Google News' top stories on Oct. 26. This nonpartisan guide explains how the system works, what the final polls showed and when results are expected in U.S. time zones.

What we know: how Israel's election works

Israel uses a national proportional representation system. Voters choose a party list rather than an individual candidate, and seats in the 120-member Knesset are divided according to each list's share of the vote.

• The threshold. A party must win at least 3.25% of the vote to enter the Knesset, Al Jazeera explains. Parties that clear it win at least four seats.
• The majority. A government needs 61 seats. No single party has ever won that many, so Israel has always been governed by coalitions, The Guardian notes.
• Forming a government. After the results, Israel's president invites a party leader to try to assemble a majority coalition.
• The term. The Knesset's term is four years.
• Who votes. About 7.3 million Israeli citizens are eligible to vote, according to Al Jazeera, including about 1.2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, often called Arab citizens.

The Arab-majority parties nearly missed the ballot. Last month, Israel's Central Elections Committee voted to bar the Joint List and Ra'am, but the country's top court quickly reversed that decision, Al Jazeera reported.

The main blocs and parties

The race is largely a contest between two blocs, plus Arab-majority parties that neither bloc has agreed to bring into a coalition.

Netanyahu has led Israel for 19 of the past 30 years and is seeking a new mandate with the endorsement of U.S. President Donald Trump, The Guardian reports. He also faces corruption charges that he has been fighting in court since 2019, Al Jazeera notes. His main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, is a former head of the Israel Defense Forces and a relative political newcomer whose new party's name, Yashar, means "honesty."

What the final polls showed

Israel bans new polls in the final days before an election, so the last surveys came out on Friday, Oct. 23. They disagreed on the details but agreed on the headline: no bloc reached 61 seats.

Sources: i24NEWS and Al Jazeera. The i24NEWS survey of 5,124 adults had a reported margin of error of plus or minus 1.4 percentage points.

The polls also split on the largest single party. i24NEWS had Likud first with 26 seats and Yashar second with 21; Kan had Yashar at 22 and Likud at 20. Both gave the Joint List nine seats and Ra'am five. Kan found that 36% of respondents had not made a final decision on which party to support.

Two small parties could decide it

The Guardian identifies two parties polling near the 3.25% threshold: Amcha Yisrael, led by former general Ofer Winter, who has said he would back Netanyahu, and the Reservists, a party focused on universal military service whose leaders sit between the blocs. i24NEWS had Amcha Yisrael crossing the line with four seats; Kan had it below, at 2.9%. Because a party that crosses the threshold wins at least four seats, a fraction of a percentage point could swing coalition math.

The issues voters are weighing

According to both outlets, the campaign has focused on:

• Security after two years of conflict on several fronts, including Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
• Accountability for Oct. 7. Opposition parties have promised a state commission of inquiry into the security failures before the attacks.
• Military service. Most opposition parties have pledged to end the draft exemption for ultra-Orthodox men, while ultra-Orthodox parties in Netanyahu's coalition want to keep it.
• The courts and democratic institutions, after the governing coalition's efforts to change the judiciary.
• The cost of living and Israel's international standing.

What's next

1. Tuesday afternoon in the U.S. Exit polls are released at 10 p.m. Israel time (4 p.m. ET, 1 p.m. PT), according to i24NEWS and The Guardian.
2. Overnight counting. The first real vote counts usually appear in the early hours of Wednesday in Israel. If small parties are hovering at the threshold, The Guardian says, counting could take more than a day.
3. Coalition talks. The president consults party leaders and invites one to try to form a government. If no one can reach 61, Al Jazeera notes the options include a minority government that relies on outside support or another election. A Kan poll found voters split almost evenly among a unity government, a repeat election and a minority government.

We will not speculate on the outcome. Check back for results after the polls close.

The bottom line

Israel's Oct. 27 vote is its first since the Oct. 7 attacks, and final polls point to a close result in which neither Netanyahu's bloc nor Eisenkot's opposition bloc has a clear path to 61 seats. Watch the 3.25% threshold and the exit polls at 4 p.m. ET. For more election coverage, see our explainers on Brazil's presidential runoff and the 2026 U.S. midterms. For money news, see what changes with Social Security and SSI payments.