Overview
- A Kikar HaShabbat exit poll conducted on Tuesday, October 27 found about 80% of surveyed Haredi voters supported United Torah Judaism (48%) and Shas (32%), with smaller lists collecting measurable shares.
- Initial official partial returns reported on Wednesday show UTJ ahead in raw votes with 240,648 to Shas’s 217,202 while both parties are provisionally projected at seven Knesset seats.
- Hundreds of thousands of outstanding special and double-envelope ballots cast by soldiers, diplomats and hospitalized voters are still uncounted and have historically shifted tight margins.
- The exit poll was limited to Bnei Brak, Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh polling stations plus an online supplement and did not publish sample size or margins, which limits its reliability as a national predictor.
- Pre-election rabbinic appeals and local turnout drives shaped where Haredi votes went, and even small splits to breakaway lists could change seat math because Israel’s national allocation depends on total nationwide votes.