(Crossposted to Jewschool.)
The 26th Knesset was sworn in today, so that means it’s time to announce the winners of Knesset October Madness 2026! As we said at this time in 2022, “There is a lot to say substantively about what happened in this Israeli election (and in the American elections, where the votes are still being counted), but we’re going to try to avoid saying those things here, and instead focus only on the prediction contest.”
Here are the final results (and again, these are the names of the parties as they appear in English on the official elections website, whether or not they are the best translations or transliterations):
- Likud 27
- Yashar! 21
- Be’Yahad 12
- The Joint Arab List 11
- HaDemocratim 8
- Ra’am, the United Arab List 8
- Yisrael Beiteinu 7
- Otzma Yehudit 7
- Yahadut HaTorah v’ha’Shabbat (United Torah Judaism) – Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah 7
- Shas – Hit’ahdut haSefaradim Shomrei Torah 6
- Zionut Datit and Zehut 6
- HaMiluimnikim v’haCalcalit
- Amcha Yisrael
- Tzeva Shahor, Magen Olam haTorah
- HaTzibbur HaHaredi
- Noam L’Yisrael for the Children’s Future
- Tzomet Beit Yisrael
- HaShutafim L’Kulam
- Sharshar l’Ahava v’Ahdut Ha”am
- B’yahad Natzliah, Joint Arab-Jewish List
- HaPiratim (the Pirates)
- Yisrael Techila
- Seder Hadash for a Constitution, Separation of Powers and Personal Elections
- Ani V’Ata Mifleget Ha’Am HaYisraelit
- Mishpat Tzedek
- HaTikun l’Shitat haBehirot b’Yisrael
- Orot HaShahar
- Kol HaNashim
- HaKahal
- Mifleget Derech Hazon and Tekuma
- Shema
- Betah _ bitahon Hevrati
- Bitahon Ishi
- HaGush haTanachi
- Gan Eden
- Brit Olam L’Geulat Yisrael
“But wait,” you say, “that’s only 36 parties! I thought you said there were 38!” Well, there were 38, but two of them dropped out after we opened the prediction contest but before the election: Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) and T’nuat Ahi. As you’ll see, this became relevant to the contest results.
We had two contestants tie for the top score, both predicting 109 out of 120 Knesset seats: Aaron W and Theo Solomon. So to pick the winner, we had to go to the tiebreaker questions. The first tiebreaker was “Of the parties that do NOT win seats in the Knesset, which will come closest?” Both of our finalists picked Amcha Yisrael (which turned out to be the second closest). This was the most popular choice for this tiebreaker question, since many incorrectly predicted that HaMiluimnikim would cross the threshold. So we have to go to the second tiebreaker: “Which party will get the FEWEST votes?”. Aaron W picked T’nuat Ahi, which, as we said above, dropped out before the election, and therefore officially received 0 votes. Theo Solomon picked HaPiratim (the Pirates), which came in 21st place with 1049 votes (0.02% of the total votes cast, but still more than 4 times as many as Brit Olam, the smallest nonzero vote count). For future contest, we should probably amend the rules to clarify exactly how it works if a party drops out before the election. But in the absence of such a clarification, it is undeniable that 0 is less than 1049, which means that Aaron W is the winner of October Madness 2026! This makes him a two-time champion (after also winning April Madness 2019). Congratulations!
Thanks to everyone who played! If this new Knesset serves its full 4-year term (like the previous one did, for the first time since the 1980s), we’ll see you again on October 29, 2030 (which, once again, will be one week before the US midterm elections). Or maybe we’ll see you again in a few months!
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