History. 4 of 7. The prime minister headed a new government within 82 days of the vote in 2003, 2006, 2013 and 2015. In 2019 and 2020 it took Netanyahu three elections and more than a year, and in 2021 and 2022 a rival took over.
Hunch. The Guardian reported on 18 October that most polls put Netanyahu's camp well short of the 61 seats he needs.
The new government market resolves on the Knesset's records: YES if by the end of 17 January 2027 the Knesset votes confidence in a new government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, including one where he serves first in a rotation. NO if no government is approved by then or someone else leads it, and Al Jazeera and BBC reports of the vote are the backup.
We looked for cases where a sitting Israeli prime minister led his party into a Knesset election since 2003, when Israel stopped choosing its prime minister in a separate vote. We found nine such elections. The three votes of 2019 and 2020 were one long crisis with no new government in between, so they count as one. Each time we asked if the prime minister was still in office 58 days after the vote.