Featured photo credit: photo from defenceimagery.mod.uk by Sergeant Tom Robinson RLC. OGL v1.0. Source.
Thought I’d type up a short and quick post about the Conservative Leadership Election before my next live class on my course begins this morning.
I have been watching on the sidelines still as candidates have been knocked out. I saw a very interesting Conservative members poll the other day that showed Kemi Badenoch would win over all existing candidates if she were to make it to the final two, and Sunak loses against everyone basically. Obviously that won’t be the case now after she was knocked out the race yesterday which was fully expected. But it does speak volumes if accurate (considering she is one of the most hardline candidates).
Many likely think it is a given that Rishi Sunak will win because he is the most popular among Conservative MPs – but many also forget that the final say comes down to the Conservative members (people who pay a fee to get certain priviledges within the party basically – such as voting in leadership elections).
Conservative members will not necessarily vote the way of Conservative MPs on leadership elections and from what I can tell currently I’d say they are further to the right on who they want to win the leadership than actual Conservative MPs – at least if polls are to be believed.
Polls of Conservative members are not necessarily accurate especially this far out and considering there are not exactly that many of them. So a lot of it is to be taken with a grain of salt, leadership elections have in the past been notoriously hard to predict.
But if we are to go with current polls on the matter it very much looks like Rishi Sunak is going to have a hard time winning in the final matchup no matter who he faces as he seems to be the least popular with Conservative members.
Now this may not come as much of a surprise when you consider Boris Johnson was very popular with Conservative members and so they may not exactly be inclined to vote for someone who pretty much stabbed Johnson in the back and brought him down.
If polls are to be believed then Liz Truss seems to be the most popular with Conservative members (and again since she was loyal to Boris throughout the whole ordeal then not really too surprising). It seems she has the highest chance of winning if facing Rishi Sunak, but even against Penny Mordaunt she would seem to have the advantage.
So – all in all – Rishi Sunak will for sure be going into the top two but no matter who he faces he is really going to need to work hard to earn the support of the Conservative members. Luckily he will have until September so there is plenty of time for things to change, but it certainly isn’t going to be a cakewalk for him like the last few days (or like it was for Boris Johnson last time).
Perhaps who ever goes through – either Liz Truss or Penny Mordaunt – one of them makes some kind of gaffe or slip up that will help Rishi Sunak get the upper hand but it is not exactly something you’d want to entirely bank on.
If I had to make a prediction at this point I’d say Liz Truss will win, I have a feeling she will make it into the top two today as I think Badenoch’s MP supporters are more likely to go more so behind her than either Mordaunt or Sunak. We shall have to wait and see this afternoon.
Rishi Sunak will probably hope that Penny Mordaunt makes it through to top two instead as she will likely be the easier matchup for him – but again she still seems to be more popular among the Conservative members than he is so it will still not be easy.
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