Israel votes, exit polls show tie between Netanyahu and Eisenkot

On Wednesday, October 28, the outcome of Israel’s legislative elections remains uncertain. Exit polls released overnight show a substantial tie between the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that of opponent Gadi Eisenkot, with neither side showing a clear path toward forming a government.

The clearest figure of the day concerns voter turnout: participation reached 77.7%, the highest recorded in over two decades and roughly 7 percentage points higher than in the 2022 elections. A mobilization of this scale signals an electorate that perceives the stakes as particularly high, in a political context marked by years of parliamentary instability and closely spaced election cycles.

The deadlock between the two blocs, if confirmed by the final figures, would revive a scenario already seen in Israel in previous years, when closely fought elections failed to produce stable majorities. The figure of Eisenkot, former chief of staff of the armed forces, represents for the centrist camp an attempt to counter Netanyahu with a profile bearing national security credentials, ground on which the prime minister has traditionally built part of his support.

It should be clearly stated that, at this stage, these are projections and not official results: Israeli exit polls have in the past shown significant discrepancies compared with the final count, especially in the most closely contested elections. The counting of actual votes, including those of soldiers and citizens abroad, can substantially alter the balance between the blocs in the days following the vote.

On this matter, the news currently comes from a single source (France 24, picked up by the EFE agency); no independent confirmation is currently available. This is a limitation that calls for caution in reading the reported figures, particularly regarding the split between the blocs, until other sources confirm the picture.

If the tie is confirmed by the official count, Israel would once again face complex negotiations over the formation of the executive, with a potentially decisive role for smaller parties outside the two main blocs. Recent history of Israeli politics shows that, under conditions of parity, the weeks following the vote can prove just as decisive as the vote itself.

The record turnout remains, at this stage, the most solid figure of election night: a participation rate 7 points higher than in 2022, in a country where legislative elections have followed one another at a rapid pace in recent years.