Opinion Polling for the 2022 Israeli Legislative Election

Polling during the 2022 campaign tracked both party support and the prospects of competing blocs to form a government. Because the Knesset has 120 seats and a majority requires 61, small changes in projected seats—and whether a party crossed the electoral threshold—could alter the coalition arithmetic.[5][6] Polls often suggested a close contest even when the leading party was apparent: Likud was generally projected as the largest party, but the pre-election balance between the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs remained uncertain.[6]

A recurring feature was the relative stability of bloc totals alongside movement among parties within them. In September, one analysis characterized faction polling as having “barely budged” since the government collapsed in June; by late October, Likud had weakened in some projections as the Religious Zionism list gained support, yet the bloc-level contest remained close.[1][2] The election ultimately produced a clearer result than many pre-election projections: parties supporting Netanyahu won 64 seats.[3][7]

Early polling showed Likud in the lead but did not establish that either major bloc could command a majority. A June 21 N12 survey projected 59 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc and 56 for the outgoing governing coalition; Likud was at 35 and Yesh Atid at 20. The poll surveyed 510 Israeli residents aged 18 or older using online and telephone interviews and reported a maximum sampling error of 4.4 percent.[8] A pre-election official account likewise described a possible stalemate, noting that threshold failures and list mergers could change the electoral arithmetic.[6]

At the campaign’s halfway point in late August, a poll-of-polls average placed the Netanyahu core bloc at 59.3 seats, compared with 55.2 for the current-government bloc. Likud’s average had fallen from 35.1 to 32.5, while Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit together rose to 11.7. The apparent increase for Blue and White/National Unity partly reflected New Hope joining its list: after accounting for the merger, the analysis put the effective gain at 0.8 seats rather than the unadjusted 4.8.[9] At that stage, Zionist Spirit averaged zero seats and had missed the threshold in each of the previous ten polls.[9]

A September analysis reported Netanyahu-aligned parties at 59–60 seats and the Change Coalition at about 56, with Arab parties potentially decisive. The Religious Zionist Party had risen from six seats in the preceding election to an estimated 11–12, but the analysis said its gains had not yet changed the projected total for Netanyahu’s bloc. The United Arab List and Hadash-Ta’al were described as close to the threshold, while Balad was well below it.[1] The analysis did not identify individual polls, pollsters, field dates, sample sizes, or margins of error.[1]

A separate August assessment said Likud was the largest party and that the pro-Netanyahu bloc was within reach of 61 seats, while warning that the election was too close to call. It placed the bloc 70,000 votes short of a majority in the March 2021 election, when more than four million votes had been cast.[10] In a later Channel 12 poll conducted October 18, Likud was projected at 30 seats, Religious Zionism at 14, and Netanyahu’s bloc at 59, against 57 for the outgoing coalition. The survey included 510 adults and reported a maximum sampling error of 4.4 percent.[11]

By late October, projections continued to show a close race. A Channel 13 poll that week put Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid at 27 seats, described as his highest tally in seven elections; the same analysis placed Netanyahu’s bloc near 60 seats and the opposing bloc at 56.[2] A Panel Politics survey for Ma’ariv, published October 7, projected 61 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc and 55 for the Lapid bloc. Its 705 respondents produced a reported margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percent.[12]

Three polls published on October 27 differed in their estimates. KAN projected 60 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc and 56 for the Lapid-led bloc; Israel Hayom projected 61 and 55, while Channel 14 projected 62 and 54. Their Likud estimates ranged from 30 to 34 seats, and Yesh Atid estimates from 23 to 25.[13] The final Channel 12 poll permitted before Election Day, fielded October 27–28 among 1,007 adults, projected 60 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc and 56 for the outgoing-government bloc. It put Likud at 31, Yesh Atid at 25, and Religious Zionism–Otzma Yehudit at 14; its maximum sampling error was 3.1 percent.[14]

Media polls were generally quick snapshots, while parties also used more extensive surveys and focus groups to test messages and guide campaign strategy. Polling was conducted largely online, commonly using representative samples of 500–600 adults drawn from larger panels; some pollsters added telephone interviews to reach groups including Haredim, older people, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and Arab citizens.[5]

Methods varied. Pollsters used different weighting and seat-projection models, handled undecided respondents differently, and made differing assumptions about turnout. One polling explainer noted that a single respondent in a sample of 500 could affect a party’s projection by roughly four seats or leave it below the threshold, illustrating the sensitivity of seat estimates near the cutoff.[5] An August summary said a quarter of Israelis remained undecided, while a separate September survey found that 21 percent had not chosen a party. The latter analysis cautioned that many were deciding between parties within a bloc rather than between blocs.[15][16]

Polls were snapshots rather than guaranteed forecasts. Midgam director Mano Geva described a poll as a measure of opinion on the day it was conducted and noted difficulties in obtaining accurate data about Arab society. The account also described checks for contradictory answers, while acknowledging that those procedures were not foolproof.[17] Israeli law barred publication of polls during the 72 hours before Election Day, with exit-poll projections released after voting closed.[18]

Turnout estimates, particularly for Arab citizens, formed an important but uncertain part of the polling picture. Pre-election reporting suggested Arab turnout might be around 40 percent or less, below the 45 percent recorded in 2021. A separate September survey found that only 39 percent of Arab respondents said they intended to vote.[19][16] An October 27 assessment put the overall turnout projection at 67 percent, although Tamar Hermann expected it to exceed 70 percent; final overall turnout was reported at 70.6 percent.[2][3] After the election, Arab-sector turnout was reported at 53.2 percent, up from 44.6 percent in 2021 and higher than most pre-election predictions of a further decline.[20]

The 3.25 percent electoral threshold made estimates for smaller lists especially consequential. Polls placed several parties near the cutoff, and the fate of lists that failed to qualify could change how votes translated into seats and which bloc could form a government.[6][21] One pre-election article listed as many as 12 party lists as possible seat-winners and forecast that Balad would not cross the threshold.[22] Its stated threshold of 3.5 percent differs from the 3.25 percent given by other accounts, including the Congressional Research Service’s description of election law.[22][21]

The result underscored the limits of projections for parties near the cutoff. Meretz averaged 4.6 seats and appeared above the threshold in every poll during the final two months, but it failed to enter the Knesset; a post-election comparison described its shortfall as about 4,000 votes.[4] Ynet gave the shortfall as 4,124 votes, while N12 reported a rounded figure of 3,800.[23][24] Balad also failed to pass the threshold, while Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al each won five seats.[20]

The final outcome differed from the near-even bloc picture common in late-campaign polling. Parties supporting Netanyahu won 64 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, while one grouping placed the opposing bloc at 51 and Hadash-Ta’al at five outside that bloc.[21][24] Likud won 32 seats, Yesh Atid 24, Religious Zionism–Otzma Yehudit 14, National Unity 12, Shas 11, United Torah Judaism seven, Yisrael Beiteinu six, Ra’am five, Hadash-Ta’al five, and Labor four.[25] A Central Elections Committee release dated November 1 explicitly described its figures as interim and not official; the committee announced on November 9 that the results had been unanimously authorized.[25][26]

In broad terms, final polling averages captured the closeness of the contest but did not identify which near-threshold party would fail. A post-election analysis put the final average for Netanyahu’s bloc at 60.3 seats. Apart from Meretz and the Haredi parties, each party finished within one seat of its average; the analysis calculated an average party-level error of 1.2 seats.[4] The Haredi parties averaged 15 seats combined but won 18, and the same analysis noted that they had exceeded polling in five consecutive elections.[4]

Threshold failures and turnout contributed to the gap between close projections and the final majority. Meretz and Balad together received nearly 290,000 votes that produced no seats, while Netanyahu’s bloc secured 64.[4] Overall turnout rose from 67.4 percent in 2021 to 70.6 percent in 2022.[3] The Netanyahu bloc’s vote increased from 2.13 million to 2.36 million, compared with an increase from 2.22 million to 2.33 million for the opposing bloc.[4] The post-election analysis identified late turnout growth among right-wing voters, particularly Haredim, as a likely factor in the discrepancy.[4]

Other retrospective assessments reached related conclusions but emphasized different comparisons. One account said polls consistently projected 59–61 seats for Netanyahu’s bloc, below the final 64.[7] A 2026 retrospective analysis reported that, roughly 150 days before the election, the combined party-by-party difference between polling estimates and final results exceeded 30 seats, and that pollsters collectively underestimated the strength of the coalition that eventually formed.[27] These summaries do not provide a common poll-by-poll dataset, so their error measures should not be treated as directly interchangeable.[4][27]

The polling record is best read as a series of dated estimates, not as a single forecast. The campaign’s bloc-level stability coexisted with party-level movement, while turnout assumptions and threshold outcomes could turn modest vote differences into substantial changes in seat allocation.[5][9] Late October polls agreed that the contest was close but varied by several seats in their bloc projections, and exit polls on election night likewise remained projections rather than the final count.[13][28]

Comparisons are also limited because some campaign analyses report bloc totals without naming pollsters or giving field dates, sample sizes, or margins of error.[1][2] An August assessment similarly discussed the race without identifying individual surveys.[10] The available material therefore supports a broad account of trends and outcomes more strongly than a uniform statistical evaluation of every poll. Forecasts of Arab turnout proved notably low relative to the reported final figure,[19][20] while the failure of Meretz—regularly projected above the threshold—illustrated a separate limitation of polling close to the cutoff.[4]