Israel exit polls: Eisenkot’s bloc edges ahead of Netanyahu, but neither side reaches 61 seats

Featured image: Western Wall plaza, Jerusalem (illustrative). Photo: Toa Heftiba / Unsplash, Unsplash License.

Israel’s general election ended on Tuesday night, October 27, without a clear winner. Television exit polls released when polling stations closed at 10 pm local time (20:00 GMT, 3 pm in Ecuador) show the opposition bloc led by former army chief Gadi Eisenkot slightly ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s camp, but neither side is projected to reach the 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

What the exit polls say

According to Al Jazeera’s summary of the projections, the Eisenkot-led bloc would win 52 or 53 seats, Netanyahu’s bloc 50, and Arab parties a combined 18. The public broadcaster Kan gave the same picture in its own numbers: 53 seats for Eisenkot’s bloc, 50 for Netanyahu’s and 17 for the Arab parties, as reported by Israel Hayom.

At party level, Netanyahu’s Likud is still projected to be the largest single list. Kan put it at 25 seats, Channel 12 at 24 and Channel 13 at 25, with Eisenkot’s Yashar! second at 21, 22 and 23 seats respectively. The three surveys give between 12 and 14 seats to B’Yachad and between 7 and 9 to Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, while Ra’am appears at 7 seats in all three.

One outlier stands out. Channel 14, a broadcaster close to the right, projected Likud at 30 seats and the right-wing bloc at 60, one short of a majority. That poll was the only one to place Netanyahu’s camp within reach of governing on its own.

Arab parties hold the balance

With 17 or 18 seats in every projection, Arab parties are on course for one of their strongest results. That leaves both camps short: on these numbers, Eisenkot could only reach 61 with support from at least some Arab lawmakers, either inside a coalition or from outside it, something only one Israeli government has done before: the short-lived Bennett–Lapid coalition, which Ra’am joined in 2021. During the campaign, Arab parties accused Netanyahu of inciting hatred to scare voters, Al Jazeera reported.

Update, October 28: the official count has since moved in Netanyahu’s favour. With about 84.5% of votes counted, his bloc leads with 54 seats to 49 for Eisenkot’s camp. Read the latest.

A high-turnout vote

Turnout was already 74.3% at 8 pm, two hours before polls closed, according to the Central Elections Committee figures cited by Al Jazeera. That compares with a final 70.63% in 2022. Likud asked for voting hours to be extended, but the committee turned the request down. This is the first national election since the war in Gaza began three years ago, and it has been widely seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s handling of the October 7, 2023 attacks and the conflicts that followed.

Confirmed vs. pending

• Confirmed: polls closed at 10 pm; the main exit polls give the opposition bloc a narrow edge and no bloc a majority.
• Pending: the actual count. Exit polls in Israel have shifted by several seats in past elections once real ballots were counted, including soldiers’ and other double-envelope votes.

What happens next

Al Jazeera reports that preliminary results are expected on Wednesday and a near-final tally on Friday, with the official results published on November 4. President Isaac Herzog will then consult the parties and has until November 11 to ask a lawmaker to try to form a government, Israel Hayom notes. That lawmaker does not have to lead the largest party: the task goes to whoever is judged most likely to command 61 votes. On these projections, that could mean weeks of coalition bargaining, and possibly another election, before Israel knows who will govern.

Sources

• Al Jazeera — Exit polls following Israeli elections indicate no clear winner (Oct 27, 2026)
• Al Jazeera — Israel election results live (Oct 27, 2026)
• Israel Hayom — Israel election 2026 exit polls: full results (Oct 27, 2026)

Kcenia Sarapova · Europe, Asia & Middle East · Virtual editorial byline
Editorial direction: Leonidas Ferraz · October 27, 2026 · AI-assisted writing