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Exit polls project Ra’am and Joint List to win 17 or 18 Knesset seats combined

Israel’s main television channels projected that Ra’am and the Joint List would win a combined 17 or 18 seats in the election. The projections put the opposition bloc at 52 or 53 seats and Netanyahu’s bloc at around 50, while Likud was expected to remain the largest single party.

AI-assisted synthesis · Based on 5 outlets' reporting · Article text read from 1 of 5 outletsHow it's made

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5 outlets2 regionsLatest reporting 3 min read
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Photo: Chezki Mozes / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What happened

Key facts

  • Exit polls projected that Ra’am and the Joint List would win a combined 17 or 18 seats (per WION, The Jerusalem Post).
  • The projected combined total for Ra’am and the Joint List was 17 or 18 seats in the 120-member Knesset (per WION).
  • The projected combined total for the two Arab lists was 10 seats in the 2022 election (per WION).
  • Channels 11, 12 and 13 projected that the opposition bloc would win 52 or 53 seats (per WION).
  • Channels 11, 12 and 13 projected that Netanyahu’s bloc would win around 50 seats (per WION).
  • Likud was projected to remain the largest single party, with 24 or 25 seats (per WION).
  • The Joint List’s head said the party “Cannot Be Ignored” amid historic turnout (per Haaretz, WION).
  • Arab News’s headline said high voter turnout boosted Arab parties as Israel election results came in (per Arab News, WION).
  • Reuters’s headline said Netanyahu warned of a surge in Arab voters in Israel’s election (per Reuters, WION).

The brief

Exit polls from Israel’s main television channels projected a combined 17 or 18 seats for the Arab-majority Ra’am and Joint List in the election. The projected total would place the two lists in the 120-member Knesset with a larger combined representation than the 10 seats they won in the 2022 election, according to WION’s account of the projections.

Channels 11, 12 and 13 projected that the opposition bloc would take 52 or 53 seats, while the bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to secure around 50. The same projections put Likud, Netanyahu’s party, at 24 or 25 seats, leaving it the largest single party in parliament. These are exit-poll estimates, rather than final election results.

Gadi Eisenkot, whom WION described as Netanyahu’s main challenger, said on Tuesday that the initial projections showed a “complete lack of confidence” in Netanyahu and the October 7 government. That was Eisenkot’s assessment of the exit polls; WION did not present it as a finding from the pollsters themselves.

The projected Arab-list total and the turnout emphasis also appeared in headlines from The Jerusalem Post and Arab News. The Jerusalem Post’s headline described high turnout alongside the 17-to-18-seat projection. Arab News’s headline said high voter turnout boosted Arab parties as election results came in.

Haaretz’s headline focused on the Joint List head’s statement that the party “Cannot Be Ignored” amid what it called historic turnout. Reuters’s headline reported that Netanyahu warned of a surge in Arab voters. The headline does not give the wording or further details of that warning.

Together, the headlines place turnout and Arab-party representation at the centre of their descriptions, while WION’s account supplies the seat projections and Eisenkot’s reaction. The projected opposition and Netanyahu-bloc totals do not account for every seat in the 120-member parliament, and WION’s text does not specify how those remaining seats would be distributed.

The next consequential figures are the final seat totals for Ra’am and the Joint List, the opposition bloc, Netanyahu’s bloc and Likud; the reported exit polls do not establish those final results.

Why it matters

  • The projected 17 or 18 seats would give Ra’am and the Joint List a larger combined presence in the 120-member Knesset than their 10 seats in the 2022 election.
  • The projections put the opposition bloc at 52 or 53 seats and Netanyahu’s bloc at around 50, making the final bloc totals a key measure of the election outcome.
  • Likud was projected to remain the largest single party, with 24 or 25 seats; that party-level estimate is distinct from the projected totals for the two blocs.

What to watch next

  • Whether final results confirm the projected 17 or 18 combined seats for Ra’am and the Joint List.
  • Whether the final count matches the projected 52 or 53 seats for the opposition bloc and around 50 for Netanyahu’s bloc.
  • Whether Likud finishes with the projected 24 or 25 seats and remains the largest single party.

How it's being covered

Coverage analysisShow details
6 source articles · 5 unique outlets
Outlet political mix: Mixed· 1 Left · 2 Center · 1 Right · 1 unrated
Where the outlets are based: Middle East 60% · Asia 20% · Other 20%
Outlet political mix
Mixed
Left
Center
Right
1 outlet
2 outlets
1 outlet
The marker shows coverage balance: each unique outlet counts once. 1 unrated outlet is not included.
Geography
Where the outlets covering this story are based.
5 unique outletsDominant coverage: Middle East
How we measure coverage

One source is from a wire service (AP, Reuters, AFP or Bloomberg), whose reporting other outlets often republish.

How outlets' accounts compare

Updat3 does not yet have enough full reports to compare how outlets framed this story.

Timeline

Developments from this story's sources, dated background we compiled and fact-checked, and our earlier coverage. Each row says which.
  1. Since Israel’s first Knesset election in 1949, voters have chosen national party lists, with seats allocated proportionally.
    Background · from our historical context
  2. In 2014, the Knesset raised the electoral threshold to 3.25 percent, increasing the pressure on smaller parties to combine or risk winning no seats.
    Background · from our historical context
  3. Arab-led parties had formed the Joint List in 2015, bringing together Hadash, the United Arab List, Balad and Ta’al ahead of that year’s election.
    Background · from our historical context
  4. Israel held a Knesset election in which Likud won the most seats but Benjamin Netanyahu did not assemble a majority.
    Background · compiled and fact-checked by Updat3
  5. Ra’am joined the governing coalition formed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
    Background · compiled and fact-checked by Updat3
  6. The Knesset voted to dissolve itself, setting an election for November.
    Background · compiled and fact-checked by Updat3
  7. In the November 1, 2022 Israeli election, the Arab-led parties Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al won a combined 10 seats in the 120-member Knesset.
    Background · from our historical context
  8. Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government was sworn in after the 2022 election.
    Background · compiled and fact-checked by Updat3

How we got here

In the November 1, 2022 Israeli election, the Arab-led parties Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al won a combined 10 seats in the 120-member Knesset.

Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, had taken a different path in the previous election cycle: after winning four seats in March 2021, it joined the governing coalition formed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in June 2021, becoming the first independent Arab party to enter an Israeli governing coalition.

Original sources

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