Israel's Ben-Gvir poised for election gains as young voters turn to right-wing
- On Tuesday, October 27, 2026, Israelis voted in a high-stakes legislative election, with exit polls indicating a deadlock between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party and challenger Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar! party, leaving neither bloc with the 61-seat majority required to govern.
- This election served as a referendum on Netanyahu's leadership following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks and three years of subsequent war, with voters split between his security track record and opposition demands for accountability.
- Israel's 120-seat Knesset requires a 61-seat majority to govern, and no single party has secured an outright majority in the country's 78-year history, giving smaller parties outsized leverage in coalition negotiations.
- National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit party targeted Likud voters while Ben-Gvir warned against forming a unity government with Eisenkot, complicating the path to a stable right-wing coalition.
- Persistent deadlock could trigger a new 90-day election cycle, potentially delaying urgent decisions on Gaza's reconstruction and military deployments in the West Bank and Lebanon.
272 Articles
272 Articles
The bloc around current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be heading for a victory in the Israeli elections. This is evident from the preliminary results of the electoral commission, with more than half of the votes counted. Netanyahu is projected to secure 55 of the 120 seats. However, it remains tense, as challenger Gadi Eisenkot currently stands at 50 seats.
With 55.4 percent of the votes counted in Israel's parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Netanyahu's Likud party is in the lead with 27 seats provisionally. Combined with the seats of other supporting parties, this brings his total to 56 seats. This gives the pro-Netanyahu bloc a seven-seat lead over the anti-Netanyahu bloc (49 seats) in the counts. The provisional results were announced by the Central Election Commission and are based on cou…
According to the partial results at the time, Netanyahu's bloc would win 57 seats in the 120-member Knesset, the opposition bloc 47.
When about half of the seats were surveyed, 6.456 of the more than 12 thousand, Benjamin Netanyahu's party, Likud, is in the lead with 571,627 votes, equal to 20.81%. (ANSA)
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- 43% of the sources lean Right
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