Israel Votes Tuesday in First Election Since Oct. 7, With Netanyahu's Bloc Polling Short of 61 Seats

Since Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has fought on multiple fronts, most recently a joint war with the United States against Iran that began in February, and on Tuesday, Oct. 27, voters get their first chance to pass judgment at the ballot box.

The numbers going in are not kind to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They are not kind to his rivals either.

The polling math

Israel.com's average of nine polls from the past two weeks puts the parties of the outgoing coalition (Likud, Religious Zionism-Zehut, Otzma Yehudit, Shas and United Torah Judaism) at 50.2 seats combined. That is down from 51.7 in January. The Knesset has 120 seats, and a government needs 61.

Eisenkot's centrist Yashar Party, founded only last year by the former IDF chief of staff, finished first in eight of the nine polls with an average of 22.1 seats. Likud averaged 20.6 and topped only the i24 News survey. The polls came from Channel 12, Channel 13, Kan 11, i24 News, Israel Hayom, Walla, Channel 16, Maariv and ZMan Israel. Israeli law barred new polling from Friday until election day.

But finishing first does not make anyone prime minister. The opposition bloc led by Eisenkot is also short of 61 in recent polling, according to CNBC's reading of the surveys. Smaller parties could end up deciding who governs.

"It could be that Netanyahu gets more votes than Eisenkot, but he doesn't have enough coalition partners," Liran Harsgor, an electoral-behavior expert at the University of Haifa, told Newsweek.

Who else is on the ballot

The field is crowded. Far-right ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) and Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionist Party) are running. Former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid are on a joint B'Yachad ticket. Yair Golan leads the center-left Democrats, Avigdor Lieberman leads Yisrael Beiteinu, and two Arab party blocs are also in the race.

Parties need 3.25% of the national vote to enter the Knesset. Most of the main Jewish parties have ruled out coalitions with Arab parties, which draw from the more than 20% of Israelis who are Arab and have rarely sat in government.

After the vote, the president asks the lawmaker best placed to assemble 61 seats to try to form a government. If repeated attempts fail, another election can be called.

What the campaign is about

Security, military conscription and the economy have dominated. The coalition Netanyahu assembled after returning to power in late 2022 has been strained by disputes over a Gaza ceasefire and the draft of ultra-Orthodox men, a legal and political fight that remains unresolved.

László Csicsmann of Corvinus University of Budapest told CNBC that Israel spends around 8% of GDP on its military and that nearly every family has a soldier or reservist called up. "The side that can better convince voters that it can protect the population is likely to win," he said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health says Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 74,500 people.

Netanyahu's record and his case

In Be'eri, a kibbutz where one in ten residents was among those killed on Oct. 7, resident Gal Cohen, 61, told Reuters that Netanyahu should have taken responsibility and resigned. "If this government will stay, many hearts and minds will be broken," he said.

Netanyahu has rejected blame for the security breach and resisted calls for an independent investigation. On the campaign trail he has argued that the wars against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran will produce a more peaceful Middle East. He says the job is complete only with the downfall of Iran's clerical rulers, and that only he has the conviction and standing to deliver it.

His supporters point to nearly 19 of the past 30 years in office and a security-first pitch. At 77, he has also come back from political defeat before.

Netanyahu is also seeking re-election while on trial in long-running domestic cases on charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery. He denies the allegations and calls them a politically motivated witch-hunt.

What happens after the count

A sharp Likud drop is not the same as a verdict on Oct. 7. Reuters reports that even if Netanyahu loses his majority, he could remain in charge of a caretaker government during a prolonged stalemate, and that the rival alliance has no clear path to power either.

The open question after Tuesday is not who wins the most seats. It is whether anyone can assemble 61, and how many rounds of coalition talks it takes before the president has to consider sending Israelis back to the polls.