Young Israeli voters are more right-wing, survey finds

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis aged 18 to 21 will enter the voting booth for the first time in the 2026 election. Their numbers are large enough to be politically decisive, with estimates suggesting this cohort could sway the equivalent of as many as 17 of the Knesset’s 120 seats.

They are entering the electorate more right-leaning, more religious, and more conservative than the generation before them.

For most of these voters, Benjamin Netanyahu has been the only prime minister they have known for any significant period. Apart from roughly 18 months of change, 16 of their 18 years have unfolded under his leadership. Their political memory has been shaped by two major ruptures, the Covid-19 pandemic and the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack and the war that followed.

A recent News 12 survey conducted by the Midgam Research Institute offers a first snapshot of how this generation sees politics and where it may be heading.

The clearest pattern in the data is cultural rather than partisan: the youngest cohort entering the electorate appears more traditionally religious and socially conservative than the one it is replacing.

More than four in ten new voters say they kiss a mezuzah, compared with roughly one in three veteran voters. Around eighty percent say they believe in God or a higher power, slightly higher than among older voters. A slim majority believe in the coming of the Messiah, again, marginally more than veterans.