Penny Mordaunt was handed another key boost in the race to make the final two of the Conservative leadership race, with votes putting her in pole position to take on the frontrunner, Rishi Sunak, and the outsider Suella Braverman being eliminated.
Sunak, the former chancellor, is still the frontrunner and added 13 new supporters but Mordaunt pulled away from the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who added fewer MPs to her tally despite a high-profile launch on Thursday.
Kemi Badenoch, the former equalities minister, and Tom Tugendhat also made it through the latest round, though Tugendhat lost five supporters. Tugendhat, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, said he would continue his campaign and take part in the televised debates starting on Friday.
Braverman departed the race after getting 27, five fewer than in the last round. Tugendhat’s 32 tally was also five fewer than his previous round. Badenoch got 49 votes, Truss 64, Mordaunt 83, and Sunak 101. There will be final rounds of voting next week to narrow the choice to two candidates. The Conservative party members will then decide.
Mark Harper, the former chief whip who is backing Sunak, said the former chancellor was shaping the debate after a call for an end to “fairy tales” about the economy. “I’m very pleased he hasn’t [committed to tax cuts],” he said. “Some people are promising also massive increases in public spending as well, you have to say how you are going to pay for it.”
Harper said there had been no dirty tricks from Sunak’s campaign or votes lent to other candidates. He said Mel Stride, the former Treasury minister, was running the campaign’s whipping operation rather than Gavin Williamson, the former education secretary who has earned a reputation for “dark arts” in leadership campaigns.
Truss-backer Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, denied his candidate was falling behind and said she was “right on track” with her campaign.
Truss is likely to pick up votes from supporters of Braverman, the attorney general and former chair of the European Research Group of hard Brexiters. Her campaign chair, Steve Baker, has been dismissive of Mordaunt for staying in the cabinet under Theresa May and voting for the Brexit deal.
Truss stressed her cabinet experience as she launched her campaign for the leadership on Thursday morning.
“I can lead, I can make tough decisions and I can get things done,” she told an event in Westminster. “I am ready to be prime minister from day one.”
In the first round, Truss came a relatively distant third with 50 votes, behind Sunak, on 88 and Mordaunt, a junior trade minister, with 67.
Tugendhat’s campaign said he fully intended to stay in the campaign through the weekend. A spokesperson for the campaign said: “Tom is in it to win it. He can’t wait to set out his positive vision for Britain and offer the party, and more importantly the country, the clean start we need.”
