It’s the day of the penultimate ballot in the parliamentary stage of the Tory leadership contest. The four candidates left in the contest are Rishi Sunak, 115 votes, Penny Mordaunt, 82 votes, Liz Truss, 71 votes, and Kemi Badenoch, 58 votes. Voting to whittle the four to three begins this afternoon with the result announced at 3 p.m. But as last night’s results showed, the race is wide open.
The only certainty right now is that if Badenoch is knocked out tonight, she won’t be out of the spotlight for long
The general consensus among MPs is that Sunak is on course to reach the final two – but when it comes to who joins him there, all bets are off. Mordaunt remains in second place but has lost momentum – she actually went down a vote between the second and third ballot. Truss remains ahead when it comes to the candidates on the right of the party but Badenoch ultimately won more votes from Suella Braverman’s backers – even though the Attorney General urged Tory MPs to back Truss.
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