Priti Patel was knocked out in the first round of the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader.
She failed to make the cut in the contest which started with six candidates.
The result of the first ballot, overseen by Harrow East MP Bob Blackman, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, saw the candidates receive the following number of votes from Tory MPs:
* Ex-Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch - 22
* Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick - 28
* Ex-security minister Tom Tugendhat - 17
* Former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly - 21
* Ex-Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride - 16
* Former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel - 14
Tory MPs will take part in another ballot on Tuesday to whittle the number of contenders down to four.
The remaining four will then take part in events at the Tory annual rally in Birmingham which starts at the end of the month.
MPs will then vote for a shortlist of two who will be put to Conservative Party members in a run-off with the result announced on November 2.
Speculation at Westminster had swirled that Mr Stride was most likely to be knocked out in the first round.
But he narrowly beat Dame Priti and was only one vote behind Mr Tugendhat.
The bulk of her votes are most likely to go to one of the other more right wing contenders, Ms Badenoch, Mr Jenrick or Mr Cleverly, the latter who was said to have performed particularly well when addressing Tory MPs in hustings on Monday.
Ms Badenoch, while in second place, is likely to be seen by some MPs to have not got as much backing as might have been expected, after a slick campaign launch.
Given how close the results were, even Tory party experts are unsure what will happen in the next round.
Some Conservative MPs are likely to be swayed by who they believe will make the best leader, others by wanting to back the candidate most likely to win, some by ties of loyalty, and others may be significantly influenced by their local party members.
Mr Jenrick, Ms Badenoch, Mr Cleverly and Mr Tugendhat had all significantly stepped up their campaigns to be the next party leader as MPs returned to the Commons this week.
Mrs Badenoch, who had been widely tipped as the bookmakers’ favourite, has sought to position herself as someone who will govern firmly to the political right, claiming in her Monday launch event that the Tories “talked right but governed left, sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour”.
Mr Jenrick, widely seen as her closest rival for the job, has sought to centre his campaign on immigration, with a promise to introduce a binding cap on the number of legal migrants and to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Former security minister Mr Tugendhat’s pitch is for a reset with the public, based around restoring honesty to politics, while Mr Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, has said his priorities as prime minister would be to boost national security, reduce migration and restore “confidence in capitalism”.
He also laid out plans on how he believes the Tories can win back seats in London.
Dame Priti promised members she would get the Conservative Party back to its “winning ways” and touted her credentials in Cabinet and her work on immigration and policing.
Mr Stride has not held a launch event, but has made frequent appearances speaking to broadcasters during the early weeks of the contest.
There has been some criticism over the timetable for the leadership race as it means the new leader will not be in place before the Budget in the autumn.
