| Party | Exit Poll AVG | Knesset Jeremy Model | Results after 99.9% | Results vs Exits | Results vs KJ | |||
| Likud | 26.2 | 22 | 30 | +3.8 | +8 | |||
| Zionist Union | 25.6 | 25 | 24 | -1.6 | -1 | |||
| Joint Arab List | 13 | 12 | 13 | 0 | +1 | |||
| Yesh Atid | 11.8 | 12 | 11 | -0.8 | -1 | |||
| Kulanu | 9.6 | 9 | 10 | +0.4 | +1 | |||
| Bayit Yehudi | 8.4 | 12 | 8 | -0.4 | -4 | |||
| Shas | 7.2 | 7 | 7 | -0.2 | 0 | |||
| UTJ | 6.6 | 7 | 6 | -0.6 | -1 | |||
| Yisrael Beitenu | 5.2 | 5 | 6 | +0.8 | +1 | |||
| Meretz | 5.2 | 5 | 5 | -0.2 | 0 | |||
| Yachad | 3.2 | 4 | 0 (3) | -0.2 | -1 |
Facts:
* Both Exit Poll average and Knesset Jeremy average are within 1 seat on 9 of the 11 parties.
* Exit polls are very close to the current results with the exception of Likud that is at +3.8.
* Knesset Jeremy Model published last week is very close to the results with the exception of Likud gaining at the expense of Bayit Yehudi.
Analysis:
* Likud is the “Yesh Atid” of the 2015 elections.
* Likud gradually gained at the expense of Bayit Yehudi during the last four-five days before the elections as indicated by internal polls that were prohibited from being published by Israeli law.
* Likud gain at expense of Bayit Yehudi is similar on a mathematical level to Yesh Atid gain at expense of Bayit Yehudi in previous election.
* Last polls gave us an accurate picture of Thursday-Friday before Likud’s strategic voting offensive against the right was launched.
* Exit polls missed Likud by close to four seats because their model missed a specific demographic or geographic area.
* It will probably take a few days of going over data to understand what they missed.
* Group of parties that are expected to nominate Prime Minister Netanyahu according to Phase 2 prediction was 66 in the Knesset Jeremy Model and that group is now currently at 67.
*This proves that the last minute shift was within the blocs.
Conclusions:
* People are going to focus too much on the polls getting Likud wrong and not enough on the polls more or less getting everything else right.
* I’m looking forward to an interesting and exciting Phase 2 process where I expect Kulanu, Bayit Yehudi, Shas, UTJ and Yisrael Beitenu to join Likud in nominating Prime Minister Netanyahu to get first crack at putting together his fourth term as Prime Minister.
Updates:
The table has been updated to reflect over 200,000 double envelope votes that were counted on March 19.
Jeremy's Knesset Insider 
I read you all along, and I was impressed all along. But frankly, calling Likud wrong was more significant than calling all the pishers right. You missed the most important call, sad to say. but I am happy to see the higher level of professionalism an accuracy that you bring to the table.
I said from the start that it would be wrong. There is a lot of focus on the gap between Zionist Union and Likud instead of on why Likud number was wrong. The other numbers were all pretty right.
I don’t think Jeremy was all that off based on where the polls were 4 days ago. But Netanyahu played dirty in the last 48 hours to try siphon off votes from Bennett and scare people to vote to stop the Arabs. Bibi knew what he was doing and it worked, sadly.
Jeremy writes: “* Exit polls missed Likud by close to four seats because their model missed a specific demographic or geographic area. It will probably take a few days of going over data to understand what they missed.”
I think it’s pretty straightforward: When push came to shove, long time Likudniks who swore they would punish Bibi for the economic situation–particularly recent lay offs–found themselves unable to actually vote against Likud. The guys who tore up their Likud cards ended up voting for Bibi…..
The only place I veer off here is the idea that the exit polls undershooting Likud by 4 and overshooting ZU by 2 is somehow okay because they got “everything else” right.
The ZU-Likud spread turned out to be the whole ballgame. Exit polls missed it by 6 seats. That’s a major, major miss.
YES THANK YOU YESHUA . I LOVE ISRAEL.
You are right that the Project-61 predicted 7-seat spike was the only real deviation from the polls, but that still deserves a lot of criticism. Why? Because it didn’t happen to some upstart like Lapid in 2013 or GIL in 2006. Those parties were wild cards because pollsters didn’t know anything about their GOTV capabilities or the steadfastness of their support. However, Netanyahu and Likud are about as known quantities as you can get. The fact is that pollsters believed that a true base would shift due to one or two factories closing, or that certain Israelis didn’t care if Bibi or Buji were PM. That shows either a deep flaw or deep bias in their methodology, or both.
The right has won. The people of Israel have spoken.
Thank you. But I don’t see any right. Bibi will do what he did last time, freezing construction, throwing Jews out of their homes, and doing insane things because of US/EU pressure.
Some “right”.
I can not see why everybody is so surprised. In reality nothing has really changed. Right through the campaign both the right bloc (Likud + BY + Yachad) and left bloc (ZU + YA + Meretz) were going to get around 40 each (80 in total). In the final analysis the right got 41 (Likud 30 BY 8 and Yachads wasted 3) and the left 39 (ZU 24 YA 11 Meretz 4).
We often talk about the importance of the blocks and it is true that are important, but it´s also important the fight for first place.
With the same results by blocks (Right-religious 57, Center-left 53 and Kahlon 10), but with ZU 25 and Likud 22, Buji might have gotten a chance of being Prime Minister with Kahlon’s nomination.
P.S. This Knesset will be record of Arab members: 17 (13 of the Joint List, and 1 of ZU, Meretz, Likud and IB). Maybe now Lieberman want to get down the threshold.
Are you counting Druze?
Unless things have changed one member of the joint list should be Jewish.
Sorry. I didn’t realize they got 14. You know, if the Arabs votes in their numbers, they would have a lot more, and then maybe people would have to stop ignoring treason by Knesset members.
Looks like 13 as they lost a seat to Meretz.
Yes – or perhaps Meretz regained its seat, as Arabs are an important part of their base.
Yes, I am counting druzes and jewish MK of the HaReshima HaMeshutefet. As finally Meretz get 5 and Joint List 13 there will be 16 arab MK´s: 12 JL, 1 ZU, 1 Meretz, 1 Likud and 1 IB. Record of Arab MK´s anyway
A lot of Druze will not call themselves Arabs. As they move to Hebrew, they may no longer be in fact.
Right-Religious (Likud+BY+YB+Shas+UTJ) = 57
Left-Secular-Arab = 53
Almost exactly the inverse of what the exit polls said. Which makes you wonder what the heck the exit pollsters were doing.
Yah, that’s pretty bad error for the exit polls even. You can understand the actual polls been a bit off if votes shifted in the last days (and they were pretty close in the bloc math), but no excuse for exit polls. Must have started celebrating Saint Paddy’s day early? :3
Yes, if you take out the Arab (because I dont think they were willing to join a coalition) that would leave the left with only 39 seats. Since Bibi will now most likely get Kahlon because of the huge gap, Bibi would have a coalition of 67 seats.
Hey guys,
Like yesterday todays Huffpost discusses possible problems with israeli polls. It’s a good read. Here is a key extract/quote:
On Monday, FiveThirtyEight attributed to Jeremy Saltan, the Israeli political commentator and election forecaster known as “Knesset Jeremy,” the observation that pre-election polls could be “flawed in addition to outdated” and “vary widely by how people are polled — by landline, cellphone or Internet.” They also linked to a report by Israeli forecaster Batelbe60 identifying “what looks like ‘herding’ in the Israeli polls.” If Israel’s pollsters are to regain the confidence of their audience both internally and world-wide, they will need to start with full disclosure of how they conducted their surveys and why any differences in the methods appeared to produce so little variation in polls released in the campaign’s final hours.
What changes can we envisage when the balance of votes are counted, Could Yachad still get in? Who could go up or down a seat? I would think that Likud & By could benefit from the IDF votes.
My opinion is not only the obvious that many BY and Yachad votes were finally drawn to Likud for various reasons, but also traditional Shas voters who might otherwise have returned back in different circumstances.
Yachad is out.
They got something like 3% in the end. The party is short by about 12,000 extra votes. That means they will need to get 12,000 additional votes above the 3% draw that they normally get, just to meet the threshold. This would require a pocket of 12,000 secret IDF Yachadnicks that nobody has ever heard about before. Theorectically this is possible, however, statistically, a random lottery ticket is a much, much, much better investment.
They obviously took from Yachad as well.
People are blaming the pre-election pollsters unfairly. If you’re not allowed to publish polls in the last 4 days it’s like deciding the result of a fairly close basketball game without counting the last 2 minutes.
Yes – it could have an effect on the undecided voters who may have ended up deciding on out of date polls
Sounds good to me.
Nir @OriNir_ ·
pollsters explain why exit polls failed: 1. 20-30% refused to part take 2. exit polls closed 2 hours before real polls 3. many people lied
#1 is not so simple.
In many locations in Israel, more than in the US, people tend to live in closer pockets of like minded people. Also, those on the religious right tend not to like to talk with flashy media types. And the flashy media types lack any understanding about how to approach these people. Additionally, the media usually discounts the religious right as not wanting to vote or participate. Hence large sections of non-homogeneous voters will be left out. Depending on the individual election and what issues may be important to this demographic, it can vary from election to election and is hard to pin down.
The media types tend to be so far to the left, they cannot rap their heads around the thought processes of any far right, particularly religious right, person or group. Neither the Jewish right, the Christian right, nor the Muslim right.
#2 is probably not statistically material, as the percentages will extrapolate nicely.
#3 is probably not statistically significant.
Or they’re incompetent.
All three of those issues are solvable by smart pollsters with good sample selection models and informed projections. Exit pollsters choked. Straight up.
If the theory doesn’t work, blame the test subject. 🙂
I recall this was done when someone suggested that a US Jewish community poll was off because certain parts of the community would not participate. Instead of conceding or arguing, the person attacked the people who did not co-operate. As if this made it more accurate? Science!
Likud forged robocalls of Kahlon support.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Likud-forged-recording-of-Kahlon-support-394157
I still want to know where all of the Yishai-is-a-Leftist ads came from.
A runway model morning jogging the Edun display on Friday
reminded us that even in settings’ most critical, incidents do indeed happen.