{"id":771,"date":"2026-10-27T13:02:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T13:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=771"},"modified":"2026-10-27T13:02:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T13:02:35","slug":"israel-election-record-turnout-netanyahu-eisenkot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/?p=771","title":{"rendered":"ISRAEL IS VOTING IN DROVES, AND NETANYAHU IS IN A DOGFIGHT! | Highest turnout in four decades, a former army chief neck-and-neck with Bibi, and neither bloc on track for the 61 seats it needs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THE LINES ARE OUT THE DOOR! Turnout in Israel&#8217;s election is running at its highest in more than <strong>four decades<\/strong>, in a vote many see as one of the most pivotal in the country&#8217;s history, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c3j47l4kdez4o\">BBC<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>Polling published Friday has incumbent <strong>Benjamin Netanyahu<\/strong> almost neck-and-neck with former military chief <strong>Gadi Eisenkot<\/strong>, who leads the newly formed Yashar Party and the so-called \u201cchange bloc\u201d of parties united mainly by wanting Netanyahu out. That bloc includes former prime minister Naftali Bennett, Avigdor Lieberman and left-leaning ex-general Yair Golan.<\/p>\n<p>The catch: neither bloc is projected to reach the <strong>61 seats<\/strong> needed for a majority, so weeks or months of wrangling may follow. Many leading parties complained of alleged irregularities at polling stations Tuesday morning, but the Central Election Committee says there&#8217;s no evidence of systematic tampering.<\/p>\n<p>An unprecedented <strong>70,000<\/strong> people have reportedly flown home from abroad to vote. Exit polls drop at 22:00 local time (20:00 GMT, 3pm CT), and many soldiers&#8217; and reservists&#8217; votes won&#8217;t start being counted until Wednesday, which could give a late boost to right-wing parties.<\/p>\n<p>The nightmare scenario is deadlock. If nobody can form a government, new elections get called and Netanyahu stays on as interim prime minister. Israel held <strong>five<\/strong> elections between 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n<p><em>Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c3j47l4kdez4o\">BBC News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Highest turnout in four decades, a former army chief neck-and-neck with Bibi, and neither bloc on track for the 61 seats it needs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/bb-israel-election-1027.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugleblast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}