President Donald Trump has claimed credit for Benjamin Netanyahu's election-night turnaround in Israel, writing early on Wednesday that his endorsement turned what was heading for a decisive defeat into "a big come-from-behind stalemate, or even a WIN for Netanyahu." In a post on Truth Social at 12:33 a.m. Washington time, Trump wrote: "When President Trump endorsed Bibi Netanyahu, the whole tide turned, and now, rather than a decisive defeat for a Great Prime Minister, it looks like a big come-from-behind stalemate, or even a WIN for Netanyahu. It all took place AFTER the Endorsement by President Trump, who only wants what is good for the Middle East, Israel, and the United States of America!"
The count Trump was watching is still unfinished, and it has not given either side the prize. With 54.9 percent of polling stations reported to the Central Elections Committee and 2,841,668 valid votes counted, the parties of Netanyahu's outgoing government hold 43.8 percent of the counted vote, which allocates them 56 of the Knesset's 120 seats; the opposition bloc holds 39.0 percent, allocating 49 seats; and the Arab parties hold 11.9 percent, allocating 15 seats. Those seat numbers are allocations worked out from the votes counted so far — they are not official results, and they will move as the remaining ballots come in. Netanyahu's Likud is the largest single party, but his bloc sits five seats short of the 61 needed to form a government.
Election night had opened far worse for the prime minister. The first exit polls from Kan 11 and Channel 13 tied the two blocs at 51 seats each, Channel 12 gave Netanyahu's bloc a narrow 52-to-49 edge, and only the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 put his bloc near power, at 60. As the real ballots were counted through the night, Netanyahu's bloc climbed ahead of the opposition on the counted vote — the movement Trump seized on in his post.
Speaking to supporters at Likud election headquarters in Jerusalem after 3 a.m., Netanyahu called for "a strong, right-wing national government" and ruled out a government that relies on Arab parties. He declared that Likud is the largest party in Israel and said the right-wing bloc had won what he called a clear, decisive majority among Jewish and Zionist voters. He tied his next government directly to Washington: "Israel faces a singular historical opportunity, together with our partner President Trump, to remove the existential threat of Iran once and for all."
His rival reads the same numbers the opposite way. Gadi Eisenkot, the former military chief leading the Yashar party, said the public had voted against Netanyahu remaining in office, called him "a caretaker prime minister, without a mandate or the people's trust," and urged him to retire from politics. Neither man claimed outright victory, and the opposition bloc has vowed not to let its chance to replace the government slip away. No response from Netanyahu, Likud or the opposition to Trump's claim of credit had been reported by Wednesday morning.
The endorsement Trump is claiming as the turning point came in two waves. On October 18, nine days before the vote, he used a Truth Social post addressed to "the Great People of Israel" to give Netanyahu his "Complete and Total Endorsement," calling him "Strong, Brave, and Brilliant" and a "Great Warrior Prime Minister," and promising that "BIBI NETANYAHU WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!" It was the first time a sitting U.S. president had ever publicly endorsed a candidate in an Israeli election. Netanyahu thanked him the same day: "Israel has never had a greater friend in the White House."
Trump warned Israeli voters in that first post: "If Israel has the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi, America will have to do this work ourselves, and I am not inclined to do so" — the work being the joint campaign against Iran, which the two countries launched together in February. A week later, on the Sunday before the vote, he posted a second endorsement, re-attaching the first and adding: "Vote for Bibi Netanyahu for Prime Minister, we have to finish the job that we started!"
How the second endorsement came about is disputed. Reporting in the days before the vote said Netanyahu had spoken with Trump twice in three days, asked for more public support and even suggested wording for the statements — a request one American source described as a sign of desperation. Likud denied that Netanyahu had asked for anything, and Trump backed that denial on Monday, telling reporters: "I put out both endorsements of him myself. I just think he's done a great job, we're working together great."
Whether any endorsement can be proved to have moved Israeli votes is a question the count cannot answer. The final polls before the vote had Netanyahu's bloc short of a majority, much as the unfinished count shows it now, and turnout reached 77.7 percent, the highest in more than two decades. Jay Bushinsky, a political commentator and former adviser to Netanyahu, judged before the vote that the endorsement might give Netanyahu "one more seat, one more mandate, but not more than that." Trump's case is simpler, and he states it as cause and effect: defeat was coming, he endorsed, and the tide turned. What is not in dispute is the stake he attached to it — a friendly government in Jerusalem, led by Netanyahu, finishing the campaign against Iran alongside the United States rather than leaving America to, in his words, do the work itself.
What happens next runs on Israel's clock, not Washington's. The remaining ballots, including the double-envelope votes of soldiers and diplomats, are counted over the coming days, with the final tally expected on October 30 and official results on November 4 — the day after America's own midterm elections. Only then do coalition negotiations begin in earnest, and only then will it be known whether Trump's endorsed man can turn a stalemate, come-from-behind or otherwise, into a government.
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