Conservative leadership contests can be tricky things to forecast. In the long view, the circumstances that precipitate them can dramatically change the political landscape – remember all those years building up the great showdown between Boris Johnson and George Osborne?
But closer in, the real confounding factor is the MPs round. Whatever the membership’s views on the candidates, it is the parliamentary party that decides which two go through to that final round.
Readers may take different views about whether or not Conservative MPs really do constitute “the most sophisticated electorate in the world”, as the cliché has it. Yet it is undoubtedly harder to read. Whilst a measure of ideological or historically-informed entrail-reading is possible, a lot of it comes down to personal relationships that span factional divides – and that’s before you get to the suggestion that front-runners with a healthy lead try to lend votes to an apparently weaker final-round opponent.
Nonetheless, there is one broad pattern than tends to hold true: that the final round features a candidate of the Right, and a candidate of a more One Nation persuasion. If that holds true this time, then our first survey of this contest paints a pretty clear early picture of the state of the race.
On the Right, Kemi Badenoch is well out in front with our panellists, with Robert Jenrick – who made his pitch to our readers on Friday – in second place and Suella Braverman in third. Assuming that reports of the former Home Secretary’s stillborn campaign are true, that means a straight fight between Badenoch and Jenrick for the Right’s candidacy.
Meanwhile Tom Tugendhat, who held a well-attended birthday drinks in Westminster on Monday, is the man to beat on the One Nation side. Although the first-preference difference between him and James Cleverly isn’t huge, the former Security Minister is already building momentum as the front-runner; the longer this goes on, the more work Cleverly will have to do to establish himself as the more plausible final-round candidate.
Of course, party members aren’t the electorate in the early rounds. But their opinions still weigh heavily on the process. Most MPs want to back a plausible winner, either in the best interests of their faction or simply with an eye on preferment under the nouveau régime. Most eagerly awaited, therefore, will be the results for how the candidates perform in head-to-head matchups; ConservativeHome will be posting out our usual bumper survey once the formal candidacies are finalised.
In the meantime, this findings still suggest something important about the membership. The wide and relatively even spread of support across five candidates and the large share of Don’t Knows suggests a much more diverse range of opinion amongst the rank and file than the media sometimes give them credit for.
The lack of an overwhelming favourite also means that this contest is wide open: there is plenty of scope for the contenders to prove their worth to the membership and fight their way to the final two – and then to the leader’s office.
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What about the ‘Other’ column? We prompted only for potential candidates whose names are circulating in the aether, so asked panellists who wanted someone else to write in their preferred choice. Excluding nominees who aren’t currently in the House of Commons, the results were as follows:
- Jeremy Hunt (7)
- Iain Duncan Smith (2)
- Jesse Norman (2)
- Danny Kruger (2)
- Oliver Dowden (1)
- Kit Malthouse (1)
- Mel Stride (1)
- Nick Timothy (1)
Oh, and:
- Nigel Farage (13)
Much to ponder in those households this evening.