In Israel, voters are deciding whether Benjamin Netanyahu should remain prime minister after three years that took the country from the Oct. 7 attack into wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. Seven days later, Americans will decide control of Congress in an election that could determine how much freedom Donald Trump has to continue the military and economic pressure he has placed on Tehran.
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Election campaigning in Bnei Brak on the eve of Israel’s Oct. 27, 2026 parliamentary election. Photo credit: Nizzan Cohen / Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 4.0.
In Iran, neither election is distant.
For a country living through war, sanctions, a U.S. naval blockade and the possibility of another round of Israeli and American strikes, the ballots being cast in Israel and the United States are part of the same strategic calculation. The names on those ballots are foreign, but decisions made by the governments they produce could affect whether Iranian oil moves, whether the Strait of Hormuz reopens, whether sanctions tighten, whether negotiations resume and whether another missile campaign begins.
That is why Tehran is watching both.
The Israeli election is more immediate. Netanyahu has spent much of the campaign presenting Iran not simply as a foreign-policy question but as part of the argument for keeping him in office. His opponents are asking Israelis to judge him on the same period of war from another direction: the failures that preceded Oct. 7, the cost of prolonged fighting, military conscription, relations with Washington and Israel’s growing international isolation.
The American election asks a different question. Trump is not on the ballot, but control of Congress could decide how easily he can fund, sustain and politically defend the next phase of his Iran policy.
For Tehran, the two votes are therefore not interchangeable. One could change the government that has fought Iran directly. The other could change the political constraints around the government that has imposed the blockade and joined the war.
Netanyahu is on the ballot even where his name is not
Israel’s parliamentary system means voters are formally choosing parties rather than directly electing a prime minister, but Tuesday’s contest has become a referendum on Netanyahu’s continued rule.
He enters the election as Israel’s longest-serving leader, after a period that began with the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, 2023 and expanded into wars across several fronts. Gaza reshaped Israel’s domestic politics and international standing. Fighting spread to Lebanon. Israel and Iran moved from years of shadow confrontation into direct war.
Netanyahu’s supporters present that record as evidence that he should remain in office. They credit him with taking military action against enemies who had surrounded Israel and argue that replacing him while those conflicts remain unresolved would interrupt the security strategy he has pursued.
His opponents use the same years differently. They point to the security failures that preceded Oct. 7, the length and cost of the wars that followed, tensions over ultra-Orthodox military exemptions and the damage to Israel’s relations abroad. Gadi Eisenkot, the former military chief who now leads the main challenge to Netanyahu, is not campaigning against the idea of military strength. He is arguing that Israel needs different political leadership to manage it.
Iran sits inside that choice.
Netanyahu has repeatedly described Iran as the central strategic threat to Israel and used the campaign’s closing days to return attention to it. Reports that he pressed military leaders to consider action involving Iran during the run-up to the vote added another layer to a campaign already shaped by the possibility of renewed fighting.
That means Tehran is not simply watching whether an Israeli government changes. It is watching whether the political argument that has helped justify repeated military action against Iran is rewarded by voters.
An Israeli election does not automatically produce a new government
Even after ballots are counted, the answer may not arrive quickly.
Israel’s 120-seat Knesset requires 61 seats for a governing majority, and the final polls before the election showed neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the main anti-Netanyahu Zionist opposition bloc comfortably reaching that number on its own.
The fragmented result could make smaller parties decisive and open weeks of coalition bargaining. President Isaac Herzog will eventually ask the politician judged most likely to form a government to try, and that process can continue for weeks. If no coalition is assembled, Israel could again face another election while the current government remains in office in a caretaker capacity.
For Iran, this matters because military decisions do not pause while coalition negotiations take place.
A government whose political future is uncertain can still respond to attacks, order military operations and make security decisions. Netanyahu could therefore remain the central figure in Israeli policy toward Iran even if election night does not give his bloc a majority.
The result that Tehran is watching is consequently not only the number of seats won by Likud. It is whether Netanyahu retains a path to 61.
If Netanyahu survives
A Netanyahu victory would give continuity to an approach Tehran already knows.
The Israeli prime minister has spent years arguing that diplomacy and sanctions alone cannot prevent Iran from acquiring capabilities Israel considers unacceptable. Under his governments, Israel expanded covert operations, assassinations, sabotage and eventually direct military attacks.
The war of 2026 removed much of the ambiguity that once separated those phases.
If Netanyahu remains in power, Iranian leaders would have little reason to assume the military track has ended. His campaign rhetoric has continued to present Iran as a threat requiring further action, while Trump has also kept open the possibility of renewed U.S. strikes if negotiations fail.
Tehran would then face two governments whose leaders have already demonstrated a willingness to use military force against it and who could interpret an Israeli electoral victory as political validation for continuing that policy.
That does not mean another attack would automatically follow. Israel would still have to weigh military readiness, U.S. support, domestic costs and the possibility of Iranian retaliation against Israeli and Gulf infrastructure.
But the political incentives would be easier for Tehran to read.
Netanyahu would have gone to voters after the war with Iran and returned with a mandate to govern again.
If Netanyahu loses
A change of government would not remove Iran from Israeli security policy.
This is one of the points that can disappear when the election is reduced to a contest between Netanyahu and his opponents. Eisenkot is a former chief of the Israeli military, not a candidate campaigning for strategic reconciliation with Tehran. The Israeli security establishment’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities extend beyond Netanyahu and Likud.
A government led by his opponents could therefore change the method without abandoning the underlying security doctrine.
It might place more weight on coordination with Washington, relations with European governments and formal decision-making inside Israel’s security institutions. It could change the political language surrounding the war and reduce the extent to which Iran becomes part of Netanyahu’s personal political narrative.
But Tehran could not treat a Netanyahu defeat as the end of the Israeli military threat.
The more immediate difference would be political. A new Israeli government would have to decide how much of Netanyahu’s regional strategy to preserve and how much to reassess, while also confronting Gaza, Lebanon, military conscription and the domestic investigation of Oct. 7.
For Iran, even a pause created by that transition could matter.
Seven days later, the more powerful election happens in America
The United States votes on Nov. 3, and the Iranian government has been calculating around that date for weeks.
Reuters reported on Oct. 20 that senior Iranian officials said Tehran had deliberately prolonged negotiations with Washington because it did not want to give Trump a political victory before the midterms. Iranian decision-makers believe the war, high fuel prices and economic disruption have damaged the U.S. president politically and that a weaker Republican performance could reduce his leverage afterward.
That calculation shows how directly Tehran now reads American domestic politics into its war strategy.
Trump will remain president regardless of the midterm result. But Congress can affect the environment in which he governs.
A Democratic House could open investigations, control committees, issue subpoenas and make it harder for the White House to dominate the political agenda. Congress also controls appropriations and plays a role in sanctions legislation, military funding and support for Israel.
A Republican victory would give Trump a different message: voters had not punished his party enough to threaten its control of Washington despite the war, energy prices and the confrontation with Iran.
For Tehran, that distinction could shape the next phase of negotiations.
Iran has already decided the U.S. election is part of the battlefield
The calculation is not subtle.
Iranian officials quoted by Reuters said Tehran does not want to make concessions that would allow Trump to claim progress before Nov. 3. One official said the establishment was preparing for renewed Israeli and American attacks rather than expecting a quick agreement and was determined not to hand Trump a political victory.
This is diplomacy being used with an electoral calendar in mind.
The United States and Iran have been discussing a phased arrangement that could eventually reopen the Strait of Hormuz and ease the U.S. blockade. Washington wants commercial shipping to move freely through the strait. Tehran wants relief from measures that have sharply reduced its ability to export oil and damaged the economy.
Neither side wants to surrender its leverage first.
Iran’s leaders appear to believe time may improve their negotiating position if Republicans lose ground in Congress. Trump, by contrast, has an incentive to show before the election that pressure on Tehran has produced results.
The calendar itself has become part of the negotiation.
The cost of waiting is being paid inside Iran
Tehran’s ability to wait does not mean waiting is cheap.
The U.S. blockade has done what years of sanctions struggled to achieve: sharply restrict Iran’s oil exports. Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted, trade routes have been damaged and shortages have spread into parts of the domestic economy.
The rial has fallen, inflation has accelerated and food prices have risen. Medicine shortages have also been reported. Border disruptions have left trucks waiting and complicated regional trade, while the government continues to devote resources to military readiness.
For ordinary Iranians, this creates a different relationship with the Israeli and American elections.
They are not following them only as geopolitical contests.
A new Israeli government could influence whether another air campaign begins. A different U.S. Congress could alter Trump’s political freedom to continue the blockade or escalate militarily. A breakthrough in negotiations could change the movement of oil, the currency and the availability of imported goods.
That brings distant ballot boxes into household calculations.
The Israeli and American votes do not offer Tehran a simple good outcome
Iran has no obvious preferred result that guarantees relief.
Netanyahu losing would remove the Israeli politician most closely associated with decades of confrontation with Tehran, but it would not eliminate Israel’s military doctrine toward Iran.
Democrats winning Congress could constrain Trump politically, but the Democratic Party has its own history of sanctions on Iran and support for Israel. Congressional control does not allow lawmakers simply to replace presidential foreign policy, particularly during an active security crisis.
A Netanyahu victory could intensify the threat of Israeli military action. A Republican victory in the United States could strengthen Trump’s hand in negotiations.
But the opposite outcomes would create uncertainty rather than automatic de-escalation.
Iran’s leadership understands that distinction, which is why its own preparations continue alongside diplomacy.
The war is present inside both elections
Iran is also affecting the voters whose decisions Tehran is watching.
In Israel, the war with Iran has become part of Netanyahu’s argument about leadership and security. His critics accuse him of using the Iranian threat politically, while supporters argue that the confrontation demonstrates why Israel needs continuity at the top.
In the United States, Iran has entered the campaign through another route: the price of war.
Trump’s opponents have focused on gasoline prices, the economic consequences of the confrontation and the costs of military involvement. Barack Obama used campaign appearances in Michigan and Ohio to attack Trump over the Iran war and connect it to household expenses.
So Tehran is watching elections that Iran itself has helped shape.
That creates a feedback loop: Israeli and U.S. governments make decisions about Iran; those decisions affect voters; voters then decide how much political power the same governments will have to make the next decision about Iran.
What Tehran sees when it looks west
Iranian officials are unlikely to expect either election to settle the conflict.
Their behaviour suggests they are looking for changes in leverage.
An Israeli government weakened by coalition negotiations may find it harder to launch another major campaign immediately. A Netanyahu victory could remove that hesitation.
A Democratic gain in Washington could complicate Trump’s domestic position and increase congressional scrutiny of the war. A Republican victory could allow him to argue that voters endorsed his approach.
Those are differences of degree, but in a conflict built around deterrence, sanctions, blockade and negotiation, degrees matter.
Iran has therefore continued military preparations while keeping diplomatic channels open. It has threatened retaliation if attacked again, maintained pressure around Hormuz and resisted terms it regards as surrender, while also participating in regional talks and indirect negotiations.
Waiting for elections does not mean Tehran believes voters in Tel Aviv or Texas will decide Iran’s future for it.
It means Iranian leaders know those voters will help decide what kind of adversaries they face next.
By the time Americans vote on Nov. 3, Israelis may already have told Netanyahu whether they want him to continue leading the country. But even then, coalition negotiations in Jerusalem could still be under way and the balance of power in Washington may not yet be settled.
For Iranians living with the consequences of a war they cannot vote on, that uncertainty has become part of daily life. Two democracies are choosing their political futures. Tehran is watching because part of Iran’s future may be decided in the choices those governments make afterward.
Sources
- Reuters — Netanyahu’s political survival on the line as Israel votes
- Reuters — Live 2026 Israel election results
- Reuters — Israel election: What happens after polls close?
- Reuters — Iran prolongs talks in stalemate to influence U.S. midterms, officials say
- Reuters — U.S. and Iran discuss phased deal to reopen Hormuz and end U.S. blockade, sources say
- Reuters — Blockade succeeds where sanctions failed as Iran oil exports stall
- Reuters — Iran ships some LPG, jet fuel despite U.S. blockade, data shows
- Associated Press — Voters in Israel are deciding whether to oust Netanyahu after 3 years of war
- Associated Press — Iranians fear a possible return to all-out war as U.S. and Israeli elections approach
- Al Jazeera — Iran’s calculations as U.S. escalation looms: Trust, midterms, Hormuz