Given that there are few things MPs enjoy more than amateur election game theory and allegations of dirty tricks, the next 24 hours are shaping up to be quite an experience for the Conservative Parliamentary Party – not to mention the rest of us.
After the elimination of Kemi Badenoch on Tuesday afternoon, one thing seems clear: barring a relatively extraordinary upset, Rishi Sunak is home and set in the battle to become one of two candidates put forward to Conservative members to elect a new party leader , and thus Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
Now the former chancellor has reached 118 parliamentary votes, just one short of what is needed to guarantee a place in the next part of the process. The magic number was 120, but after Tobias Ellwood lost the party whip and thus his vote, it is 119.
Team Sunak would have hoped to reach that mark in Tuesday’s penultimate round of voting, but his allies point out that he has remained first throughout, gaining ground each time, and to complain would be rude.
Likewise, for all the genuine irritation among Badenoch supporters, her departure was widely predicted. A peak of 59 votes in the fourth round is an excellent result for someone who has never been in the cabinet and now almost certainly will be under the new prime minister.
The likelihood of that prime minister being Liz Truss was significantly higher on Tuesday than it had been the day before, with the foreign secretary returning after a slow campaign to win 15 votes, leaving her just six behind second-placed Penny Mordaunt and with significantly more sentiment for impulse.
Just how Truss, the reinvented queen of 21st-century Brexit and small-state Thatcherism, seemingly won a significant 31 more votes than Tom Tugendhat, eliminated in the third round, rather than a more Tugendhat-friendly Mordaunt, has unleashed a torrent of conspiracy theories .
For what it’s worth, Team Sunak and other camps deny formal vote-taking as a way to game the outcome, such as giving Sunak a runoff against a candidate he may think — rightly or wrongly — he can beat in the vote of the members.
Such a tactic would be fraught with danger, not least because Sunak is hardly in a position to lend bits of voice. Also, it’s by no means clear that he’s more likely to beat Mordaunt or Truss – in fact, the research shows he’d lose to both.
It is more likely that when candidates are eliminated, their former supporters vote tactically whether to favor the second best or upset the opponent’s chances. Many do this individually, some after conversations with colleagues, some even in small groups. The end result is extreme unpredictability.
Looking ahead to Wednesday’s crucial and – barring a tie – final round of voting in MPs, Truss appears well-placed to edge out Mordaunt, the international trade secretary, and catapult himself into a decisive second place at the last opportunity.
Badenoch’s exit left 59 votes up for grabs and while the former Equalities Minister had her differences with Truss, she and Mordaunt clashed brutally in televised debates, particularly over Mordaunt’s (relatively) liberal views on social issues.
Steve Baker, who was one of Badenoch’s main backers, made that clear as he told reporters in a sweltering House of Commons corridor after Tuesday’s vote: “I would think that most of the people who are attracted to Kemmy are mostly not to be attracted to Penny.
So are we ready for a Sunak vs. Truss runoff? Logic points to that. But much of this race has so far defied logic. The heat wave may be about to end, but the scheming and double-dealing is another day of sweaty palms ahead.
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