Will Likud win the most seats in the 2026 Israeli legislative election?

Prediction markets put the probability at 44%: Will Likud win the most seats in the 2026 Israeli legislative election. Currently, markets are divided (44% YES, 56% NO).

What’s Happening

The race for the 2026 Israeli legislative election has tightened dramatically, with recent polling showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party slipping to 19-23 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, a significant drop from the 32 seats it won in the previous election. A Channel 13 poll published on August 26, 2026 placed Likud at 19 seats, trailing Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party, which polled at 24 seats, while a separate Channel 12 survey from late April showed the newly formed Beyachad party edging out Likud by a single seat, 26 to 25. These figures have fueled the market’s 56% NO probability that Likud will not win the most seats, as Netanyahu himself reportedly told confidants he does not know how to reverse the party’s decline, according to Kan News. [Jerusalem Post, Aug 27]

The procedural backdrop is equally volatile, with Likud’s August 17, 2026 primary results failing to halt the slide. Only candidates finishing in the top 17 of the primary are considered viable, as polls consistently show the party winning fewer than 25 seats, making it nearly impossible for Netanyahu to scrape together a governing coalition with his traditional religious and far-right allies. The April 2026 Channel 12 poll, the first after Beyachad’s formation, projected Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc at just 50 seats against 60 for the Zionist opposition and 10 for Arab factions, a structural deficit that undermines the Likud’s path to a plurality. Despite this, Britannica’s election analysis notes that Likud remains the single largest party in several projections, and Netanyahu is still the favored candidate for prime minister among Shas, United Torah Judaism, and far-right factions like Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism, provided they clear the electoral threshold. [Britannica, Aug 12]

The election, scheduled for October 2026, now hinges on whether Netanyahu can stabilize Likud’s base or whether the fragmentation of the right will hand the plurality to a centrist challenger. Netanyahu’s own public admission on August 27, 2026 that his party will lose “unless something changes” marks an extraordinary departure from his usual messaging, while polls conducted by groups close to the Israeli right show more favorable results, indicating a deeply polarized electorate. The key procedural milestone ahead is the final candidate list submission and the official campaign period, which will test whether Likud can consolidate undecided voters or whether Eisenkot’s Yashar and Beyachad’s centrist surge permanently erodes the Likud’s historical dominance. With the market pricing a 44% YES probability for Likud winning the most seats, the outcome remains highly contingent on last-minute coalition negotiations and voter turnout among the religious right. [Anadolu Agency, Aug 27]

Traded on Polymarket — $113K Volume

Polymarket prices this at 42c YES with $113K in volume. Moderate liquidity — use limit orders for positions above $1K to avoid moving the price.