On the evening of October 14 a Channel 13 News seat poll was published. According to Haaretz and Maariv the Netanyahu bloc gets 51 seats in it; Maariv reports that this is a drop of four seats. Likud falls by two seats compared with last week, to 18, and Eisenkot’s Yashar! remains the largest party with 20 (Haaretz, Maariv). The Eisenkot bloc gets 50, as in the previous poll, with a boycott by some of its parties of the Arab parties being what keeps it at that number (Haaretz). Hendel passes the electoral threshold; Haaretz notes Winter in its headline as well, and Maariv and Reshet 13 Zelicha. At the same time Minister Miki Zohar said he would propose a rotation to Eisenkot if he leads in the bloc and in seats, and Eisenkot said that without 60 Knesset members he would swear in a minority government.
When neither bloc reaches 61, the decision shifts to the question of who can build a coalition, and with whom, not only who received the largest number of seats. The question whether Netanyahu or Eisenkot will head a joint government has moved from speculation to a subject that senior politicians discuss openly.
Votes for a list that does not pass the electoral threshold are not translated into seats. Those torn between small lists should check where they stand across several polls, not one. The vote is on October 27, and Ynet published a voter’s guide on polling station hours and on what invalidates a ballot.
Those who expect change see in the poll confirmation that Netanyahu is weakening and that Eisenkot is the only one leading in seats.
On the right they point out that this is a single poll, that the opposing bloc depends on the decision about the Arab parties, and that the fate of the small lists is hard to predict.
The number worth noticing is 19: the seats that remain outside both blocs, among them, by definition, those that the boycott takes out of the calculation. Until October 27 it is worth following three things: whether the boycott of the Arab parties holds or breaks, whether Hendel and the second list stay above the line in the next polls, and whether the talk of a rotation becomes a party’s official position or remains statements by ministers.
Haaretz, Maariv, Reshet 13, Israel Hayom, Davar, Srugim, Ynet, Kikar HaShabbat (October 14, 2026)
12 days to the election: in Channel 13 News poll the Netanyahu bloc falls to 51 seats, and in Likud they are already talking about a rotation with Eisenkot
Eisenkot’s Yashar! remains the largest party in the poll, with 20 seats, and Likud falls to 18. But neither bloc comes close to 61, and on the right and in the center there is already talk of a joint government.
The Channel 13 News poll published on the evening of October 14 gives the Netanyahu bloc 51 seats. Maariv writes that the bloc lost four seats since the previous poll; Haaretz notes that Likud alone fell by two seats compared with last week and stands at 18. Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar!, led by the former chief of staff, holds at 20 seats and remains the largest party in the poll. The Eisenkot bloc stands at 50, as in the previous poll, after some of the bloc’s parties declared a boycott of the Arab parties, and it is the boycott that keeps it at that number (Haaretz). A simple calculation shows that neither bloc comes close to 61, a Knesset majority, and that 19 seats remain outside both. From 51, Netanyahu is ten seats short, and Eisenkot, without the Arab parties, eleven.
The poll puts two small lists into the Knesset. Hendel, chair of the Reservists list, passes the electoral threshold, about 3.25% of the votes. The second list appears in two versions: Haaretz notes Winter in its headline, and Maariv and Reshet 13 Zelicha, and the publications available to us do not explain the difference.
At the same time, voices not heard in Likud before were heard there. Minister Miki Zohar said on the Knesset Channel that if Eisenkot leads in seats and in bloc size, he will propose a rotation to him, with Netanyahu serving first because of his role in the regional arena; Maariv writes that this is the first time a senior Likud figure has spoken this way. Israel Hayom adds that in the party they still doubt the idea of a broad government. Srugim attributes to Deri the sentence “I am in favor of a broad government with Eisenkot,” and Eisenkot said, according to the Davar website, that if the change bloc does not reach 60 Knesset members, he will swear in a minority government.
Likud also appealed to the chair of the Central Elections Committee and to the head of the Shin Bet, asking them to examine contacts that foreign diplomatic representatives held with Haredi figures, to find out whether there is a chance of Haredi support for a government headed by Eisenkot (Israel Hayom, Maariv). Ynet wrote that European embassies in Israel are monitoring the Haredi sector and working to bring Haredi parties into such a coalition, to enable a stable government without reliance on Arab parties. The contacts were reported; no finding was published defining them as interference in the election.
There is movement inside the camps too, but in reports by one outlet at a time. Israel Hayom reports that Hamilov, a former deputy mayor of Ofakim who was wounded on October 7 while trying to rescue his daughter, is leaving Likud and joining Liberman. Ynet reports that in the Gur Hasidic dynasty, which holds the senior slot in Agudat Yisrael, they have not yet begun calling on their people to vote, and its mouthpiece makes no mention of the election, against the background of an internal rift after MK Porush and the candidate Eliakim Starck left the party.
Background: on October 27 the 120 members of the 26th Knesset will be elected, and according to Ynet more than 7 million eligible voters will be able to vote. Forming a government requires 61, and the president assigns the task to whoever seems to him to have the best chance, not necessarily the head of the largest list. An analysis in Israel Hayom said that Netanyahu has begun a round of interviews on Channel 14, Army Radio and Kan 11 after the latest polls.
DailyDrop notes: one poll is a snapshot, not a forecast. The sample size and margin of error did not appear in the publications available to us, and another poll, by Channel 14, is given in the headline of Kikar HaShabbat the wording “Bennett jumps by 4 seats,” with no detail we can check. The talk of a rotation, too, is statements by politicians in campaign days, not a party commitment.