Wednesday, October 28, 2026 · Morning Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. Benjamin Netanyahu has [pulled ahead of Gadi Eisenkot with more than 70% of the vote counted, his bloc projected to take 54 seats against Eisenkot's 47](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2026-10-28/netanyahu-moves-ahead-of-eisenkot-in-israeli-vote-count-video), and neither man holds a clear path to a government. Israelis turned out in record numbers in [their first election since the October 7 attacks and the war in Gaza, with opposition parties projected to win more seats than Netanyahu's coalition](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/projections-show-no-clear-winner-in-israels-election). With the count deadlocked, the choice falls to President Isaac Herzog, whose role is ceremonial except after elections, when it is his responsibility to pick a candidate for prime minister.

At home, the administration has built the apparatus to reject any result it dislikes. In 2020 Trump had a fraud narrative but not the machinery to act on it; this time he has both, and they have spent months reinforcing each other. Cleta Mitchell turned Trump's “Big Lie” into a movement, while Trump wants midterm voters to imagine he is on the ballot. It is a transnational script — what the Trumps, Bolsonaros, and Netanyahus have in common: in Brazil, the defeated Bolsonaro clan lost, cried fraud, and ran to Trump's America, Flávio Bolsonaro arriving in the US after Brazil canceled his passports.

The ground is shifting under Republicans. In Iowa, where the party was on the verge of a sweep two years ago, it is now trying to limit its losses. In Lubbock, a longtime Republican stronghold, duelling rallies by James Talarico and Trump drew thousands, in what Democrats call their best chance in a generation.

Beyond the ballot, the machinery of coercion expands: the number of state and local officers working with ICE has doubled in the last eight months, according to a report from FWD.us. Inside Amazon warehouses, hundreds of “Hercules” robots now haul the orders workers once walked the aisles to retrieve. And abroad the next target is set: Tisdall warns that once the midterms are over, Trump will be free to pursue vendetta politics and lash out at Iran — a war that has already cost the US military at least $47.1 billion as of mid-October.