Click here to see the bottom of post for the update.
The exit polls are breaking as the the 2015 Israeli elections to the Knesset have finished. While pre-election polls predicted the left-wing alliance, the Zionist Union, was set to be the leading party and form a coalition, the exit polls say that didn’t happen.
With the American President, the Israeli left, and the Arabs all aligned against him, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud party have beaten the polls, according to the exits. Every major exit poll has Likud tied or ahead.
Notably, two religious parties underpeformed the pre-election polls: Jewish Home and Yachad. That leads one to speculate whether some religious voters were concerned that a Zionist Union-led government would be a threat to Israeli security, and the future of the Jewish homeland.
It is looking like Battleground Israel was no more successful than Battleground Texas.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) March 17, 2015
Update: Via Phil Kerpen, with 94.5% of votes counted, Likud is up 23.24% to 18.77%. He says most of the ballots left to count are IDF, overseas, and jailed voters, so this is about it for tonight.
94.5% in: Likud 23.24% ZU 18.77% Arabs 11% Lapid 8.79% Kahlon 7.42% Bennett 6.41% Shas 5.79% YB 5.17% UTJ 5.13% Meretz 3.89% *Yachad 2.97%
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) March 18, 2015
It’s now likely that Benjamin Netanyahu will be chosen as Prime Minister of Israel for a fourth time. He’s already the second-longest serving Prime Minister in Israeli history, while also being the youngest living Prime Minister. He will need a full term plus another term in order to pass David Ben-Gurion as longest-serving, though.
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