CONSERVATIVE voters have the “opposite” perception to the rest of the public on whether Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss performed better in the Tory leadership debate, John Curtice has said.
A snap Opinium poll also found that the public in general think the Tories should choose Sunak as the next leader – by 43% to Truss’s 41%. However, among Conservative members Truss is the clear favourite.
Curtice cited that Opinium poll while giving his verdict on the BBC clash which saw the two final contenders to replace Boris Johnson in No 10 face off on live TV.
Appearing on BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday morning, the polling expert said: “The truth is that amongst Conservative voters asked who they thought had the better of the debate, the answer for a plurality at least was Liz Truss. Amongst them 47% thought she was the better of the two, 38% scored it for Rishi Sunak.
“That is the opposite of the rest of the public … amongst voters in general, according to this very instant poll done by Opinium, it was Sunak 39, Truss 38.”
Curtice, the president of the British Polling Council, said the “crucial thing” was the perceptions of Tory voters as it could hint at how the party’s members – the only people eligible to vote on who becomes the next prime minister – felt.
He said that overall the debate had been a “draw”, but Truss would be happy with that. The professor noted that Truss’s scores in the question of whether she would be a good prime minister had been creeping up during the leadership race, saying she was now “at least” Sunak’s equal in terms of public popularity.
“Probably Liz Truss will feel happier about the outcome of last night than Rishi Sunak,” Curtice added.
Viewers thought that Liz Truss would be more likely to be more of a change (41%) than said the same about Rishi Sunak (24%). 65% of viewers thought that Rishi Sunak would be more of the same. pic.twitter.com/M0T5pwjY2s
— Opinium (@OpiniumResearch) July 25, 2022
The Opinium research, which polled 1032 UK voters who watched the debate, also asked which candidate represented a change from Johnson’s administration.
Despite Truss having the backing of Johnson loyalists such as Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg, 41% of the public thought she would offer change. This was compared to 47% who thought she would bring more of the same.
For Sunak, just 24% of people thought he represented change, while 65% said he would bring more of the same.
The results come despite Sunak having signalled that Johnson’s time is up, whereas Truss has left that door open.
Truss told the BBC debate: “[Johnson] made mistakes but I didn’t think the mistakes he made were sufficient that the Conservative Party should have rejected him.”
Curtice said that Truss and Sunak were “pretty much as one” on the vast majority of issues, but Johnson’s future and the economy were clear differences.
The polling expert said the economy was likely to be the central issue in future hustings and debates between the two No 10 hopefuls as it was their largest point of contention.
He added: “There’s a little bit of a disagreement about whether or not Boris Johnson has some kind of political future or not. Sunak clearly thinks he doesn’t, Truss isn’t quite as clear cut on that.”
Asked how the opposition should “use” the contest, Curtice told BBC Radio Scotland that the economy would be “central” to the UK Government’s efforts in the next two years. He said its poor performance, and the squeeze put on households by the cost-of-living crisis, could see Labour sweep to power even without a coherent plan to solve anything.
Curtice went on: “In a somewhat curious twist of fate here, the Labour Party is at one with Liz Truss in opposing the increase in National Insurance in order to pay for the health service.”
He said that, if Truss becomes prime minister and reverses the NI increase, Labour might have “some of its thunder stolen” and find it trickier to convince voters at the next General Election.
