While Tom Tugendhat won the public opinion poll after last night’s debate, this is a race that will be decided by Tory members – and they seem to have a new winner (for now at least). A new ConservativeHome poll has seen Penny Mordaunt knocked off the top spot by Kemi Badenoch – who now has a double-digit lead. In a rapidly-moving contest, it’s quite significant.
‘Mordaunt’s ship is becalmed,’ says Paul Goodman in the ConHome analysis. She led Badenoch by 46 per cent to 40 per cent in an either/or poll last Tuesday. But in this different poll (with all five candidates) she’s on just 18 per cent, with Liz Truss second at 21 per cent and Badenoch quite clearly ahead on 31 per cent.
The bookmakers are still betting that Tory MPs will not let Badenoch get to the final two (below) and you can certainly see why. At the MPs’ voting stage, much is decided on backroom deals and horse-trading – neither of which are Badenoch’s speciality. Her pitch for No. 10 is certainly audacious, given that – unlike Sunak, Truss and Mordaunt – she has never held a cabinet job. But her directness and brand of conviction politics does appeal to activists looking for a leader who could convey the idea that, after 12 years, the Conservatives are still capable of change.
Sunak has the lead with MPs and took 101 votes last time. Mordaunt had 83, Truss 64, Badenoch 49 and Tugendhat 32. Those numbers are in flux, as are loyalties. Truss was seen to have bombed on the Channel 4 debate last night, and there are rumours that even members of her campaign think that she’s over – or will be, if she doesn’t manage to recover her Miss Dynamite effervescence in tomorrow night’s debate. If you’re an ‘Anyone But Mordaunt’ MP (and I’ve met quite a few of those in recent days) and have given up on Truss, then the question is whether Sunak or Kemi would be more likely to sink her.
The Tory leadership race is perhaps the hardest in politics to predict: the polls (and bookies’ odds) have been all over the place. They’re pointing right now to a Sunak vs Mordaunt final, but anything can still happen.
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