Israelis voted Tuesday in the first general election since the October 7 attacks, with 7.3 million people eligible and the final surveys showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 77, level with the centrist challenger Gadi Eisenkot, 66. No party was expected to approach the 61 seats that a majority in the 120-member Knesset requires, so the count may take days and the coalition bargaining weeks. The election is the day’s central fact: a government that has set Gaza policy for three years is being renewed or replaced by an electorate that has not been asked since the attacks.

Washington was quiet by comparison. The Federal Register carried 180 documents and no presidential documents. The Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit each filed no opinions. Twelve new complaints reached the District of Columbia district court, and one watched case, the East Potomac golf dispute, moved four times. The ten-year Treasury closed Monday at 5.00 percent, and September consumer prices rose 0.59 percent for the month, nearly twice August’s pace.

The administration and the rule of law

No presidential documents appeared in the October 26 and 27 window, a finding about the calendar rather than a gap. Of the 180 documents, 21 were final rules, 10 were proposed rules and 149 were notices, and most of the notices are the routine filings of an ordinary Tuesday: information collections, advisory committee meetings, exchange fee schedules.

Two Justice Department final rules carry the most reach, and both take effect November 27. The first adopts, with minor updates to official titles and the earliest claims date, the interim rule that implements the HAVANA Act of 2021, which permits agency heads to pay individuals who suffer qualifying brain injuries; it applies to current and former department employees and their dependents (Implementation of HAVANA Act of 2021). The second amends the background-check regulations under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act so that federal firearm licensees may voluntarily run employment checks on current or prospective employees, which the rule calls firearm-handler background checks (Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022-Criteria for National Instant Criminal Background Check System (“NICS”) Background Checks of Firearm Handlers).

The Department of Health and Human Services reached for a notice rather than a rule to impose a travel condition. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention order, issued October 22 and effective November 3 through December 18, requires a signed attestation from airline and other aircraft passengers arriving in the United States that they have not been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during the 21 days before boarding (Requirement for Attestation for All Airline or Other Aircraft Passengers Arriving in the United States From Any Foreign Country and Controlled Free Pratique for Airlines Confirming That Such Passengers Have Not Been in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the Past 21 Days). The Energy Department added helium to its Critical Material List, citing its use in medical and scientific work and in detecting leaks in gas infrastructure (Critical Material List; Addition of Helium).

On the proposed side, HHS opened comment through November 27 on changes to Exchange eligibility and verification under the Affordable Care Act, covering inconsistency periods, annual and plan-year redeterminations, enrollment methods and coverage effective dates (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Exchange Pre-Eligibility Verification).

The courts

Both appellate courts were silent. The Supreme Court filed no opinions in the window, and the D.C. Circuit filed none.

Twelve new complaints were docketed in the District of Columbia on October 26. Among them were Holley v. United States, 1:26-cv-03753; Doe v. Mullin, 1:26-cv-03751; Sanchez Diaz v. Mullin, 1:26-cv-03750; Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, Inc. v. United States Department of the Interior, 1:26-cv-03738; Scan Health Plan v. Department of Health and Human Services, 1:26-cv-03737; and Scroggins v. U.S. Department of Education, 1:26-cv-03748. The pack records the caption, number, court and filing date of each; it does not carry the complaints, so this edition does not describe what they allege.

Of the five watched dockets, three were still. The East Potomac golf case, D.C. Preservation League v. Department of the Interior, 1:26-cv-00477, recorded four entries on October 26, a minute entry and ECF 101, 102 and 103 (D.C. Preservation League v. Department of the Interior). Beatty v. Trump, Phang v. Blanche and MSW Media, Inc. v. Department of Justice recorded nothing. The consolidated Phang appeal in the D.C. Circuit could not be read, because the collector’s request timed out, so this edition cannot say whether that docket moved.

Markets

Monday’s close is the board for the equity indexes, the first session of the week. The S&P 500 finished at 7,676.77, up 53.09 points or 0.70 percent; the Nasdaq Composite at 26,169.381, up 214.039 or 0.82 percent; and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 52,361.58, up 146.42 or 0.28 percent, all as of October 26.

Live prints this morning, stamped between 6:50 and 7:01 a.m. ET, put the VIX at 17.89, down 0.50 or 2.72 percent; the ten-year yield at 4.976 percent, down a hundredth; gold at $4,024.20 an ounce, down $14.20; front-month WTI crude at $101.13 a barrel, down 63 cents or 0.62 percent; and the dollar index at 102.192, up 0.233.

Treasury’s official curve for October 26 ran 4.68 percent at two years, 5.00 at ten and 5.31 at thirty, with the 2s10s spread at +0.32, a basis point wider than October 23. The short end eased one basis point, the ten-year held at 5.00 and the long end eased two.

Total public debt outstanding was $40,463,151,897,249 on October 23, up $18,809,187,860 from the previous business day. Debt held by the public was $32,610,649,676,158, and the intragovernmental share was $7,852,502,221,091.

The economy

September’s consumer price index came in at 336.940 on the 1982-84 base, up from 334.980 in August and 333.918 in July. The one-month move was 1.96 index points, about 0.59 percent, nearly twice August’s 0.32 percent. Unemployment rose to 4.2 percent in September from 4.1 in August and July. Nonfarm payrolls totaled 159,044 thousand, a gain of 29,000 over August’s 159,015 thousand.

Taken together, the three readings describe prices accelerating while hiring slows. The monthly inflation rate nearly doubled, the unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point, and payroll growth fell to 29,000 from August’s 133,000.

Elections and the midterms

On Tuesday morning Polymarket priced the House at 91.5 percent Democratic on $196,688 of twenty-four-hour volume and 8.5 percent Republican on $139,381, and the Senate at 66.5 percent Democratic on $95,593 and 33.5 percent Republican on $89,302. The Senate figure is two points more Democratic than Monday’s 64.5.

The balance-of-power event priced the combinations separately: a Democratic sweep at 65.5 percent on $159,498, a Republican Senate with a Democratic House at 26.5 percent on $65,552, a Republican sweep at 7.5 percent on $112,129, and a Democratic Senate with a Republican House at 0.8 percent on $149,185. A residual “other” contract carried $857,842, the heaviest volume in the table, at 0.1 percent, which is worth naming before anyone reads volume as conviction.

In the state races, Polymarket put Democrat James Talarico at 66.5 percent in Texas against Republican Ken Paxton at 33.5, a two-point shift toward Talarico since Monday; Republican Susan Collins at 38.5 in Maine; Mary Peltola at 74.5 in Alaska; Republican Byron Donalds at 80.0 for Florida governor; and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed at 68.5 in Michigan.

These are the venues’ prices, not this publication’s view, and a thin book is not a forecast.

The world

Israel’s election is the day’s largest event outside the United States. The Euronews account, published before the polls closed, put 7.3 million people eligible, including many first-time voters, and described tens of thousands of Israelis abroad as having flown home to vote. Final surveys had Netanyahu level with Eisenkot, a former military chief and political newcomer who leads the Yashar party and an informal right-to-centre-left bloc. Arab-majority parties, representing about 21 percent of the population, could hold the balance, though neither frontrunner had publicly committed to partnering with them. Polls close at 22:00 local time, or 21:00 Central European Time; final results could take days, and coalition talks weeks or months (Israelis head to polls in first general election since 7 October attacks with no clear favourite).

Polymarket read the race differently from the surveys. Its market on the next prime minister priced Eisenkot at 62.1 percent on $251,699 of twenty-four-hour volume and Netanyahu at 27.5 percent on $2,238,546. The two readings are not in conflict. The market asks who will form a government, not who will win the most seats, and a level seat race can still produce a lopsided coalition price when the balance sits with parties that neither frontrunner has embraced.

Sources

Market, yield, debt and prediction-market figures were collected at 06:00 CT on October 27, 2026 from CNBC’s quote service (October 26 close for the indexes), the U.S. Treasury daily yield curve (October 26), FiscalData (October 23) and Polymarket’s Gamma API (twenty-four-hour volume). The BLS public API supplied the three series named above. World-news headlines came from five feeds; the Israel story was fetched and is linked above.

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