Prices as of Tuesday, August 25, 2026. Record compiled from more than 60 dated sources; see the sourced record file for every citation.
Naftali Bennett went on Channel 12 on Saturday, August 22, and used the interview to describe the man he is trying to replace as "almost an anarchist. What we are going through over the past few years is anarchy in the State of Israel." He called Benjamin Netanyahu an "authoritarian, unbridled person who forgot how to be a democrat," a "sort of French king," and said the pro-Netanyahu "poison machine" "headed by the Channel 14 network" runs daily brainwashing on a scale that "is very, very powerful." He warned the same tone could now endanger rivals like Gadi Eisenkot. The Times of Israel published the remarks on August 23. No Likud response was quoted.
The warning landed in a specific week. On August 23 the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service, confirmed its chief, David Zini, had personally turned down Eisenkot's request for an armed detail: "The decision on not attaching a security detail to Mr. Eisenkot was made by the Shin Bet head, and he is solely responsible for this issue," per the Times of Israel liveblog. Eisenkot, the former army chief, leads every August poll.
Channel 12's August 24 poll put Yashar at 24 seats and Netanyahu's Likud at 22, but the count that decides the election is the bloc count: Netanyahu's camp 50, the anti-Netanyahu Zionist parties 59, the Arab lists 11. A government needs 61. Eisenkot is two seats short without Arab support; Netanyahu is eleven short. On Kalshi, where a price in cents is the market's probability, "Eisenkot is the next prime minister" trades at 56 cents bid and 58 cents ask, a 57% chance, roughly -133 in sportsbook terms. Netanyahu sits at 24 to 25 cents, about +308. The bettors have priced a man whose bloc has not reached a majority in a single poll.
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The Board
As of August 25, 2026 (Kalshi, cents = probability; first number is what buyers offer, second what sellers ask):
| Next prime minister | Kalshi price | Reads as |
|---|---|---|
| Gadi Eisenkot | 56¢ / 58¢ | about 57% (≈-133 in sportsbook terms) |
| Benjamin Netanyahu | 24¢ / 25¢ | about 24.5% (≈+308) |
| Naftali Bennett | 5¢ / 7¢ | about 6% (≈+1567) |
| Avigdor Liberman | 6¢ / 9¢ | about 7.5% (≈+1233) |
Eisenkot plus Netanyahu leave roughly 18 cents for "someone else, or nobody by the deadline"; the Bennett contract is the cheap way to say the anti-Netanyahu side wins but Eisenkot is not the one sworn in. Polymarket, fetched the same afternoon, runs cooler on Eisenkot at 55.25 cents and warmer on Netanyahu at 27.5. On Kalshi, Netanyahu's contract has traded $81,881 against Eisenkot's $17,701: American money is still trading the name it knows. The Kalshi-versus-Polymarket comparison covers why the two venues drift apart.
What the Models Think
We also asked a panel of AI models the same question. Five of the panel's eight seats ran this board, without seeing the price, only the sourced record below. Their blended answer, the middle of the five, put Eisenkot at 43%, fourteen points below the 57-cent market. Four landed between 40% and 44%; one sat at 60%, so the widest gap between two models was 20 points. Every model noted that Eisenkot's bloc has run 53 to 59 seats all August and has never reached 61 without Arab support, and several cited 2021, when the largest anti-Netanyahu party ceded the first turn as prime minister to Bennett's seven-seat list under a rotation, the Israeli arrangement where two leaders split the term. One model put it this way: "Eisenkot's party leads polls and Netanyahu's bloc sits ~10 seats short, but his bloc needs Arab-list support or a minority government, and Bennett could take the premiership instead." The lone 60% seat read the same polls and judged a Ra'am bridge of four or five seats within reach.
The panel's figures are model estimates, not predictions of fact; the market has real money behind it and the panel has only the record.
How Eisenkot Got To Two Seats Short
Israel does not vote for a prime minister; it votes for party lists, and the 120 Knesset seats are split in proportion to the national vote. No party comes close to 61 alone, so the race is bloc against bloc: Likud, two ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) parties and two far-right parties on one side; Yashar, the Bennett-Lapid list, the Democrats and Yisrael Beytenu on the other; the Arab lists counted outside both. After the vote the president hands the mandate to whoever has the best shot at 61, which is why the market asks who gets sworn in, not who wins the most seats. New to this? Start with how a prediction market turns a question into a price.
Eisenkot was the army's chief of staff from 2015 to 2019. His son, Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, was killed in Gaza in December 2023. He resigned from the Knesset on July 2, 2025, and founded Yashar on September 16, 2025; his party tied Likud in June polling and led it in all eight August polls. Bennett has said since February 17 that he will not sit under Netanyahu. Netanyahu was already one of the three leaders the models rated likeliest to leave office this year on our board of world leaders on the way out.
The plan for the missing two seats is on the record.
"Yashar has been quietly preparing for a contingency scenario: swearing in a government with 58 or 59 MKs." (Times of Israel, August 23, attributed to "those close to Eisenkot," not the candidate.)
The same day Ra'am, Mansour Abbas's Islamist party, told the opposition it would not demand recognition of a Palestinian state in coalition talks, and Eisenkot said "there is no Palestinian state, and in the government we form, a Palestinian state will not be established."
The Fight: An AI Ad, A Pardon, And Trump's Maybe
The ugliest moment came on July 21, when a Netanyahu AI-generated ad showed Eisenkot "running past a young man wearing an 'Israeli unity' shirt to embrace Mansour Abbas". Critics said the young man in a field of flowers was heavily implied to be a stand-in for Eisenkot's dead son. Likud denied it: "The attempt by extremist elements to draw such a shocking comparison is merely an effort to conceal the simple fact that Gadi has no government without Yair Golan and the Arab parties." By August 7 Haaretz was reporting "Smearing Eisenkot backfires, and Netanyahu's paying a price in Likud." The mud runs both ways: the elections panel ordered Eisenkot's own AI video of IDF soldiers taken down on August 6.
Netanyahu is campaigning while on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. His cross-examination ended June 16 after more than a year, and on June 30 the judges recommended prosecutors drop the bribery charge; Justice Minister Yariv Levin called it "trumped up," and Defense Minister Israel Katz posted "the trial must be canceled." Netanyahu asked President Isaac Herzog for a pardon late last year, after Donald Trump told the Knesset on October 13, 2025, "Who cares about cigars and champagne?" Herzog rebuffed it in March and proposed plea-deal talks instead. Trump, on Fox News on August 17: "I think it's most appropriate for me to stay out of Israeli elections, but I may endorse somebody."
The coalition's own fault line is the draft. On July 14 the Knesset passed a law banning arrests of Haredi men who dodge military service; the High Court froze it within hours, per i24NEWS on July 15. Shas, which won 11 seats last time, polls at 7. Likud's August 17 primary gave Netanyahu eight hand-picked slots, and Nir Hefetz, the former aide turned state's witness, told the Jerusalem Post on August 19 that one may go to Netanyahu's son Yair; the Times of Israel called that speculation and "unlikely" on August 20. Nothing is decided.
The last 72 hours have been about fear. Per Times of Israel and Haaretz headlines on August 24, Netanyahu warned that small right-wing parties could hand the election to a "fascist" left and that "thousands" could be killed if he loses; on Channel 14 he said "Iran tried to kill, to murder one of my sons," without detail. On August 25 Eisenkot accused the "PM allowing anarchists to do whatever they please," borrowing Bennett's word. The market did not flinch: Kalshi's morning quote on August 25 matched the afternoon re-fetch to the cent.
What Moves The Price From Here
September 9, the list deadline. The threshold picture firms up. Ofer Winter's new list polled 2.5% on August 23, under the 3.25% line; every right-wing vote wasted below it helps Eisenkot's bloc, every wasted center vote helps Netanyahu's.
September bloc polling. The models' own trigger: whether Netanyahu's camp moves off the 49-to-52 band it held all August, and whether the anti-Netanyahu bloc reaches 59 or better in more than one poll.
A Trump endorsement. "I may endorse somebody" was said on August 17. It is the one October event the polls cannot already price. On the other side, an explicit commitment from Abbas pushes Eisenkot up; a walk-back pushes Netanyahu's contract up from the mid-20s.
Results are certified November 4. This one settles on Tuesday, October 27, 2026.
Hero illustration: OddsShopper, in the house collage style. Gadi Eizenkot photo by Mark Neyman, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0; Benjamin Netanyahu photo by Avi Ohayon, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0; photos cropped, toned, and composited. Prices quoted are live Kalshi market prices as of Tuesday, August 25, 2026, and will keep moving until this market settles after the Tuesday, October 27, 2026 vote. Kalshi is a CFTC-regulated event-contract exchange (18+; availability varies by state). OddsShopper covers prediction markets as an independent analyst: any model or panel figures referenced are model estimates, not predictions of fact and not financial advice. This article does not advocate for or against any candidate or party. Trading involves risk; contracts can go to zero.
