Final polls show Israel election likely to end in deadlock
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The last pre-election polls indicate that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc nor the opposition led by Gadi Eisenkot is expected to secure the 61 seats needed for a Knesset majority.
The final opinion polls released before Israel’s election on Tuesday suggest a stalemate, with both the coalition headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot falling short of the 61 seats required for a majority in the 120-member Knesset.
Under Israeli law, new poll results cannot be published from Friday until the election day. The aggregated average of all available polls puts Netanyahu’s bloc at 54 seats and Eisenkot’s bloc at 50 seats.
A split appears between pollsters associated with right-leaning outlets and those from mainstream media. Six mainstream television and newspaper surveys give Eisenkot’s bloc a slight edge, projecting 52 seats to Netanyahu’s 50. In contrast, polls from Channel 14 and i24 News, which employ pollsters previously linked to Likud, show Netanyahu’s coalition reaching a 61-seat majority while Eisenkot’s bloc would hold 45 seats.
Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, are averaging 14 seats, just below their 2020 record of 15 seats. While Arab voter turnout has hovered around 50 % in recent elections, the Stat-Net institute, which focuses on the Arab electorate, estimates turnout could rise to 68-69 % this year, potentially boosting Arab representation beyond current projections. Increased Arab participation would also raise overall voter turnout, affecting the threshold for parties to enter the Knesset.