According to preliminary exit polls, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party scored enough seats in Israel's Tuesday elections that another term as premier is likely for him. Defying some expectations that Netanyahu had lost ground to the center-left Zionist Union Party, Likud came out either tied or ahead in three television exit polls on Tuesday evening in Israel.
Results With Caveats
While Netanyahu has already declared victory and is placing calls to leaders of other parties to begin building a governing coalition, the official results won't be released until Thursday at the earliest. Not many expect that the tally will shift much, but following such a close race, and with two parties (Likud and Zionist Union) angling to assemble a coalition, each seat matters.
Voter turnout, in case you were wondering, was nearly 72 percent.
Bibi's Last-Minute Appeal
On Monday evening, Netanyahu made the (by many accounts distressing) announcement that he no longer supported the establishment of a two-state solution.
By reversing himself on a crucial position, it appears that he may have helped his party nab a few more seats from right-leaning parties, especially Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home party, which received only eight seats, despite projections that it would net as many as a dozen.