# October 23, 2026 snapshot: the route to 61 seats

Forecast data through October 23, 2026, 14:20:46 Jerusalem time.

Neither core bloc reaches a majority in the central forecast. The Netanyahu-aligned bloc and the Zionist Opposition are both below the 61 seats needed for an arithmetic majority.

In R, the vote-led approach, Netanyahu-aligned parties average **53.8 seats**, compared with **52.5** for the Zionist Opposition. D, which adds an adjustment based on selected additional published seat evidence, puts them at **54.2** and **52.1**, respectively.

| Grouping | R: expected seats (80% range) | R: 61+ | D: expected seats (80% range) | D: 61+ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Netanyahu-aligned | 53.8 (48–59) | 6.4% | 54.2 (49–59) | 5.1% |
| Zionist Opposition | 52.5 (47–58) | 2.6% | 52.1 (48–57) | 1.0% |
| Zionist Opposition + Arab lists | 64.2 (59–70) | 79.7% | 64.3 (59–69) | 83.8% |

The Zionist Opposition grouping comprises Beyachad, Yashar!, Yisrael Beiteinu and The Democrats.

Adding Ra'am and the Joint List to the Zionist Opposition produces a combined arithmetic grouping averaging **64.2 seats in R** and **64.3 in D**. Its probability of reaching 61 seats is **79.7%** in R and **83.8%** in D. This grouping makes no assumption about an agreement between those parties, and these probabilities describe seat totals rather than government formation.

The published party seat headlines are:

| Party/list | R | D |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Likud | 24 (20–27) | 24 (20–27) |
| Shas | 8 (0, 5–11) | 8 (0, 6–10) |
| United Torah Judaism | 8 (0, 5–10) | 8 (0, 6–10) |
| Otzma Yehudit | 8 (0, 5–10) | 8 (0, 6–10) |
| Religious Zionism–Zehut | 6 (0, 4–9) | 6 (0, 5–8) |
| Amcha Yisrael | 0 (0, 4–7) | 0 (0, 4–7) |
| Haredi Public | 0 (0) | 0 (0) |
| Beyachad | 13 (10–15) | 13 (10–15) |
| Yashar! | 23 (20–26) | 23 (20–25) |
| Yisrael Beiteinu | 8 (0, 6–10) | 8 (0, 6–10) |
| The Democrats | 9 (0, 7–12) | 9 (0, 7–11) |
| Raam | 5 (0, 4–8) | 5 (0, 4–7) |
| Joint List | 8 (0, 5–10) | 8 (0, 6–10) |
| Blue and White | 0 (0) | 0 (0) |
| Reservists–Economic | 0 (0, 4–7) | 0 (0, 4–7) |

The ranges in parentheses show zero separately whenever it has simulated probability; the interval after the comma is the central 80% range conditional on representation.

These whole-seat headlines allocate each arm's mean vote vector into a coherent 120-seat result. Expected seats in the bloc table average the seat outcomes across simulations, so the two summaries need not add up to the same bloc number.

The source updates recorded in this release are:

- [Israel Hayom / Kantar Israel / Dudi Hasid](https://www.israelhayom.co.il/news/politics/article/21687549) — 2026-10-22; primary publisher source, official PDF pending.
- [Zman Yisrael / Yossi Tatika / Adgenda](https://www.zman.co.il/735649/) — 2026-10-22; primary publisher source, official PDF pending.
- [Channel 14 / Next Data / Shlomo Filber](https://www.c14.co.il/article/1750553) — 2026-10-22; primary publisher source, official PDF pending.
- [Channel 16 / Maagar Mochot / Yitzhak Katz](https://www.skarim.org/polls/channel-16-2026-10-22) — 2026-10-22; cited secondary report and broadcast image, official PDF pending.
- [Maariv / Lazar Research / Menachem Lazar / Panel4All](https://www.maariv.co.il/news/elections-2026/article-1380289) — 2026-10-22; primary publisher source, official PDF pending.

This release applies N1 to **4 raw vote-share questions, covering 60 party observations**, and preserves **7 already normalized questions**. N1 removes explicitly reported same-question non-response from the denominator while retaining other-party responses; it does not allocate undecided voters to parties.

The historical N1 source-base audit remains incomplete. Questions whose non-response base has not been established are retained without an additional automatic rescaling; the normalization audit identifies them.

The current snapshot uses **100,000 shared simulations**. R assigns equal weight to them; D assigns different normalized weights to those same outcomes. The bloc intervals contain the central 80% of each arm's simulated distribution. A displayed zero-seat headline can coexist with a chance of crossing the threshold. The forecast is conditional on no untracked other list crossing the electoral threshold. Future dates in the package project the current information forward; they are not additional polling observations.

Readers can inspect the [CSV/JSON data package](../data/README.en.md), [source observations](../data/poll_observations.csv), [transformed model inputs](../data/model_inputs.csv), and [date-specific input roles](../data/input_membership.csv). The source ledger includes historical, held and superseded records; use the role table to identify what contributes on a particular date.

This October 23 issue uses the existing public incumbent on main and verified polling published through October 23, with an information cutoff of 14:20:46 Israel time. Five new independent seat polls are added: Israel Hayom/Kantar, Zman Yisrael/Tatika, Channel 14/Next Data and Channel 16/Maagar from October 22, and Maariv/Lazar published October 23 with fieldwork October 19–22. The six-page Lazar report dated October 22 was recovered from a secondary mirror and checked against the original publisher; its sample is 1,048 and its seat table totals 120. The Channel 16 broadcast image was recovered from a secondary mirror; it reports more than 5,000 respondents, not an exact sample size, and fieldwork remains unknown. Partial vote percentages, separately reported undecided responses and turnout questions are preserved without constructing an unsupported national vote vector or applying N1 twice. No new vote vector is admitted. The official CEC registry and three newly discovered successor PDF links (4240, 4241, 4243) returned HTTP403. The successor files were not read and their contents are not inferred. Existing verified representations of those three surveys remain in place without duplicate budgets. This issue does not claim a complete latest CEC inventory. The incumbent ballot roster and no-surplus-agreements allocation assumption remain unchanged. No private U1 repair, equal-lane candidate or new calibration is promoted. Both public arms share 100,000 current simulations. Earlier final outputs, draw counts, cutoffs, articles, recovered distributions and attribution are preserved. Only current calculations and conditional future projections are new. The complete English/Hebrew website package includes direct CSV/JSON reader files; the reader ZIP is separate. No website deployment is performed.