Netanyahu bloc slips to 57 seats as Israel's count passes 37%

Update, 28 October, 07:07 Israel time

Three outlets now put the Netanyahu bloc at 57 seats, two fewer than in Amit Segal's raw count. Ynet alerts said that with 37% of votes counted, the Netanyahu bloc stood at 57 seats. The Times of Israel reported the same 57 to 47 lead over the opposition, but at nearly 42% of ballots counted, with Arab parties taking the rest of the seats. The outlets do not explain the gap between their counting percentages.

Party breakdown. News.co.il, in a tally it timed at 05:49:20 with about 37.4% counted, gave these seat figures:

• Likud 28, down one; Yashar! 21, up one
• Joint List 12, up one; Beyachad 11
• United Torah Judaism 8, down one; Yisrael Beytenu 8
• The Democrats, Otzma Yehudit, Shas, and Religious Zionism with Zehut, 7 each
• Ra'am 4, on 3.81% of the vote

News.co.il listed two lists as falling short of entering the Knesset: the Reservists and Economic list on 2.72% and Amcha Yisrael on 1.77%. Its bloc picture showed the current coalition on 57, the change bloc on 47, the Joint List on 12 and Ra'am on 4.

Separately, N12 posted an edited note saying more than a million votes had been counted across 3,024 ballot boxes, a figure lower than the totals it reported earlier.

Update, 28 October, 06:08 Israel time

The count has now passed 2 million votes. N12 correspondent Dean Fischer said more than 2 million ballots, about 37% of the total, had been tallied, with Likud still the largest party on 21.7%, followed by Yashar! on 15.7%, the Joint List on 9.2% and Beyachad on 8.4%. Fischer said the Joint List had become the third largest party.

Earlier, at about 1.8 million votes, Ynet alerts gave Likud 29 seats and Eisenkot's party 20, stressing that this reflected only part of the vote.

Segal's raw count. Amit Segal wrote that with 31% counted, the Netanyahu bloc held 59 seats, the Eisenkot bloc 46 and Arab parties 15, and said this would shift in favour of the Arab parties and probably the change bloc. N12 relayed his party breakdown: Likud 29, Yashar! 20, the Joint List and Beyachad 11 each, United Torah Judaism and Yisrael Beytenu 8 each, Otzma Yehudit, the Democrats, Shas, Religious Zionism and Zehut 7 each, and Ra'am 4.

In a morning summary, Segal said exit polls had put Netanyahu ahead 52 to 49, while the count gave his bloc 59 against 46, with 15 for Arab parties. That post attributes the result to 28% of votes counted, whereas his earlier post gave the same figures at 31%. He expects the gap to narrow because areas favouring the right have so far dominated the count, and described the change camp as having suffered a heavy defeat. He also wrote that Yisrael Beytenu leader Liberman had declined to rule out a government with Ra'am and called on Netanyahu to resign.

The story as first reported

Israel's official vote count was moving through the night after polls closed, with Likud holding first place in every running tally published by Israeli media. Ynet reported that once 1.6 million votes had been counted, more than a quarter of the total, Likud stood at 22.2% and Yashar!, the party led by Eisenkot, at 15.4%. Ynet added that exit polls had pointed to a tight race between the two main blocs.

Channel 12 News (N12) put the same 1.6 million figure at about 28% of votes. Its correspondent Dean Fischer said Likud was losing a little of its strength and that its lead over Yashar! was shrinking. The Times of Israel, which earlier described the pro-Netanyahu bloc as holding a large lead with just over a quarter of ballots in, later reported that the distance between the blocs was starting to close.

How the numbers moved overnight

The partial results shifted as counting went on. In an early N12 update, correspondent Adva Dadon gave Likud 27.8%, Yashar! 16.3%, Beyachad 9% and Yisrael Beytenu 8.1%. By the time about 950 thousand votes had been counted, N12's Adar Gitzis reported Likud at 24.1%, Yashar! at 16.1%, Beyachad at 8.8% and Yisrael Beytenu at 6.9%.

Ynet's alerts channel tracked a similar path. It reported 908 polling stations counted, then 8.5% of stations, then fewer than 14% with Likud on roughly 25% of the vote. With almost a million votes counted, Ynet put Likud at 24.1%, the same figure N12 gave. At 1.6 million votes, its alert gave Likud about 22%.

What a bloc means in Israeli politics

Israelis vote for national party lists, and seats in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, are shared out in proportion to each list's vote. No single party governs alone, so analysts group parties into blocs according to which candidate for prime minister they are expected to back. In this count, reporters spoke of a Netanyahu bloc and a bloc led by Eisenkot, with Arab parties often counted separately.

Hebrew coverage refers to seats as "mandates". Projections of mandates from a partial count are estimates, not official results, and can change as votes from different communities come in.

Seat estimates from Amit Segal

Channel 12 political analyst Amit Segal published his own estimates on his Telegram channel. Using results from 72% of the count in Rehovot, a city he said almost always tracks the Jewish electorate, and adjusting for Arab voters, he projected roughly: Likud 25, Yashar! 20, Beyachad 13, the Joint List 11, Otzma Yehudit 9, Shas 8, Yisrael Beytenu 8, Ra'am 7, United Torah Judaism 7, the Democrats 6 and Religious Zionism 6. That gave 55 seats to the Netanyahu bloc, 49 to the change bloc and 16 to Arab parties.

Segal later wrote that Likud believed its lead would widen to 56 against 47, adding that he had no way of knowing whether that was right. After 28% of votes were counted, he said the Netanyahu bloc was ahead of the Eisenkot bloc by 13 seats, a margin he expected to even out somewhat. In a separate post he said Likud stood at 30 seats on the raw count so far, noting that this was open to change. His Rehovot-based projection and his raw-count figure for Likud use different methods and should not be read as a contradiction in the count itself.

The local picture

Ynet reported that Eisenkot was leading in Tel Aviv and Haifa, while United Torah Judaism, an ultra-Orthodox party, was ahead in Jerusalem. Likud led in Rishon LeZion, Ashdod and Holon, and took more than 30% in Bat Yam and Netanya, according to Ynet alerts.

In Kiryat Shmona, a town on Israel's northern border, Ynet said Likud kept its strength and won about half the votes. Ynet framed that result as coming after 3 years of war.

What the reports do not say

• None of the reports gives a final result or an estimate of when the count will be complete.
• The sources describe the same 1.6 million votes as "more than a quarter" (Ynet) and about 28% (N12, Segal); none states the total number of votes cast.
• The reports do not say which bloc each smaller party belongs to beyond Segal's grouping, and Ynet's mention of voters for Bennett does not identify his list's result.
• Seat figures come from one analyst's projections and from Likud's own expectations, not from the official count.
• No report addresses whether any party is near the threshold for entering the Knesset.