Israel’s Exit Polls Deny Netanyahu a Majority but Not Power
Israel’s election ended Tuesday night without the verdict Benjamin Netanyahu demanded. Exit polls denied his governing bloc a parliamentary majority—but the deadlock may still leave him in office, commanding a caretaker government while his rivals struggle to assemble an alternative.
Major Israeli television networks projected that neither Netanyahu’s camp nor the opposition led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot reached the 61 seats required to control the 120-member Knesset. The result is not final. Counting began after polls closed at 10 p.m. local time, and official totals can move as parties cross or fall below the 3.25 percent threshold.
That caution matters. Exit polls are estimates, not votes. Associated Press said it would not declare a winner until Israeli authorities confirm one, while Reuters reported that final results could take days. Israel may need weeks of coalition bargaining after that.
Still, the first political message is stark: a record-turnout election did not give Netanyahu the mandate he sought after the October 7, 2023 attack and three years of regional war.
One Channel 12 exit poll put Netanyahu’s Likud first with 24 seats and Eisenkot’s Yashar second with 22. It projected 50 seats for Netanyahu-aligned parties, 52 for Jewish-led opposition parties and 18 for Arab-led parties. No bloc was close to governing alone. Other networks also showed no majority, according to Reuters and AP.
That arithmetic makes Palestinian citizens of Israel newly consequential—and exposes the limits of the opposition’s own politics. Arab-led parties could provide the votes that remove Netanyahu, possibly through outside support rather than cabinet membership. Their strong projected showing followed unusually high participation in Arab communities.
Netanyahu spent the closing hours warning about that turnout. His far-right allies Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich echoed the alarm. The message was familiar: treat Palestinian citizens exercising the franchise as a threat to the state rather than part of its electorate.
The opposition now faces a choice. It can accept Arab voters as legitimate partners in ending Netanyahu’s rule, or preserve the exclusionary consensus that has repeatedly rescued him. Eisenkot and other Jewish opposition leaders campaigned against Netanyahu’s corruption, judicial assault and refusal to accept responsibility for the October 7 security collapse. But they have also resisted dependence on Arab-led parties.
That contradiction is the hinge of the result.
Deadlock is not defeat
Netanyahu has survived political crises by waiting out opponents, splitting alliances and turning temporary office into permanent leverage. A caretaker government would give him time, visibility and the state apparatus while negotiations drag on. The absence of a majority is therefore not the same as his removal.
The stakes extend beyond one politician. A Netanyahu coalition would likely remain dependent on ultra-Orthodox parties and the far right. An opposition coalition could remove Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, open a state inquiry into October 7 and reverse parts of the government’s attack on judicial checks. Those changes would matter inside Israel.
They would not automatically end the structures imposed on Palestinians. The election campaign barely confronted Israel’s devastation of Gaza, occupation in the West Bank, military presence in southern Lebanon and Syria, or wars with Iran. Millions of Palestinians living under Israeli military power had no vote in the Knesset election that helps decide those policies.
Record turnout cannot erase that democratic boundary. It can, however, force Israel’s opposition to reveal whether its promise of change includes equal political legitimacy for Palestinian citizens—or stops where their votes become decisive.
President Isaac Herzog will eventually consult party leaders and ask the person he believes most likely to form a government to try. Until verified results arrive, no one has won. Yet Netanyahu already understands the opportunity inside the stalemate: if his opponents cannot cross their own red lines, he can remain prime minister without winning a majority.
Sources and image credits
Hero/card archive photo: Hagai Agmon-Snir / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0, November 15, 2022; cropped and overlaid. It does not depict election night.
Inline archive photo: Rakoon / Wikimedia Commons, CC0, April 9, 2019. It does not depict the October 2026 election.
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