Method
Blue and White withdraws
The page still says the Netanyahu bloc is slightly ahead, now with about 52 seats, the opposition bloc with 51 and the Arab parties with 13, from 53, 50 and 13. Benny Gantz took Blue and White out of the race on 19 October, so the forecast no longer gives it seats, and the seat between the two large blocs went the other way in the rounding, by two thousandths of a seat.
Added after publication: corrections to how the forecast reads polls it already had — cells the sources mark below the threshold, the vote shares pollsters file with the Central Elections Committee, and i24’s poll of 2 September — ran it again on the same 83 polls. The table is unchanged: the Netanyahu bloc with 52 seats, the opposition bloc with 51, the Arab parties with 13 and The Reservists-New Economic Party with 4. But the seat between the two large blocs no longer turns on two thousandths of a seat. The opposition bloc’s remainder is larger by about seven hundredths, resampled simulations give it the seat about 97 times in 100, and with Blue and White still in, the same polls give the same table. The Netanyahu bloc comes out the larger in 64.9% of simulations; the opposition bloc and the Arab parties reach 61 between them in 83.4%, which is arithmetic about seats, as below; Amcha Israel wins seats in 46 simulations in 100. The figures below are those of the first run.
The top of the forecast page now reads Netanyahu bloc is slightly ahead with about 52 seats, Opposition bloc with 51, and Arab parties with 13. On 19 October it read 53, 50 and 13. The other 4 seats are still in the table under The Reservists-New Economic Party, a list in neither bloc.
The word is the same. The Netanyahu bloc comes out the larger of the two in 65.5% of simulations, counting a tie as half to each, from 65.3%. “Slightly ahead” runs from 60% to 75%.
Blue and White
Benny Gantz withdrew Blue and White from the race on 19 October, eight days before the vote. The list had filed in September, and what withdrawing after that does to its ballot slips is not something we could confirm. The forecast now leaves it out, as it left out Unity, which did not file.
On its own numbers that changes almost nothing. Of the polls in the window that report it, every one but S.M.L.T.’s of 7 September put it below the threshold, and it won seats in 0.35% of simulations, less than two hundredths of a seat on average. The polls that put it under the line counted its vote, about 1% in those that print a share, as wasted, and the forecast does not move that vote to any list.
No poll has been added since 19 October: the newest in the sources the forecast reads are still those of 18 October. Four published since are not yet in either of them: Channel 12’s, Channel 13’s and Channel 14’s of 19 October, and Walla’s of 20 October.
The seat
The table shares the 120 seats in proportion: each bloc by the seats it is expected to win, and The Reservists-New Economic Party by its size when it is in, 4. Whole seats come to 117, and the 3 left over go to the largest remainders. The Reservists’ and the Arab parties’ took two of them. The third lay between the two large blocs. On 19 October the Netanyahu bloc’s remainder was larger by less than three hundredths of a seat. Today the opposition bloc’s is larger by two thousandths of a seat.
Every bloc’s average moved by less than four hundredths of a seat. Run with Blue and White still in, today’s polls give the same 53, 50 and 13 as on 19 October. Leaving it out runs every simulation afresh, and with the seat this close, that was enough to move it. Resampled at random, today’s simulations give the seat to the opposition bloc 525 times in 1,000 and to the Netanyahu bloc 475 times. In the table it moves from Likud, now with 22, to Yashar, now with 22.
The rest
Neither bloc is near a majority. The Netanyahu bloc reaches 61 seats in 1.3% of simulations, from 1.4%, and the opposition in 0.4%, from 0.5%. The opposition bloc and the Arab parties reach 61 between them in 83.0%, from 82.3%. That is arithmetic about seats and nothing more: those seats belong to lists that do not act as one, and no coalition is modelled here.
Amcha Israel wins seats in 48 simulations in 100, as on 19 October, so the table still gives it none, and its seats stay in the Netanyahu bloc. The Reservists-New Economic Party wins seats in 53 in 100, from 54, so the table keeps its 4 seats.
The table has Likud and Yashar with 22 seats each. In the simulations Yashar wins more seats in 45.0%, Likud in 42.7%, and they tie in 12.3%.