It was once described as the most wide-open race in a generation. Now, as ballots drop on Conservative members’ doorsteps, the race is being deemed all but over.
The most telling sign for this is when ambitious ministers keen to keep their jobs come out with their 11th hour endorsements for Liz Truss, having waited to make sure they will pick the winning horse.
The race has also begun to follow a more predictable playbook. Like Boris Johnson, Truss launched her campaign late and limited early media appearances and thus opportunities for gaffes. Like Johnson, her thick-skinned campaign has been solid boosterism.
Rishi Sunak’s began as pragmatism and seriousness – like Jeremy Hunt – but he has since been forced to throw out ever more red meat to catch up with his rival, similar to how Hunt ended his final weeks of campaigning.
But Sunak’s campaign is not giving up and MPs quietly say the race might be closer than expected. It is true the narrative of Truss’s sure victory bears some closer examination. Her lead has been commanding in the YouGov polls of party members – about 24 points – but the last poll was on 21 July.
It found that 31% of the membership intend to vote for Rishi Sunak, while 49% intend to vote for Liz Truss. A further 15% currently don’t know.
But the Conservative membership is difficult to poll – though YouGov have an excellent track record. Polling before the Johnson-Hunt result in 2019 correctly predicted the result but gave Johnson a much higher margin of victory than he got.
MPs from both Truss and Sunak’s camps are conducting their own polling of association members. Most think Truss is on course to win but will stress the vote is very soft. Many MPs described their ad-hoc local polling of members as neck-and-neck with a significant number undecided.
One said they did not think ballots would be returned as quickly as in previous years, despite the conventional wisdom that members return their ballots within days, which would have given Sunak just days to turn his fortunes around.
Another MP said their older members were by-and-large breaking for Sunak and younger members for Truss, suggesting older members were less likely to take part in online polling. The other indication that the race might be tighter than expected is a poll of Conservative candidates that put just a point between the pair.
One former cabinet minister said they had done an informal poll of their members, finding almost an even split, with a third undecided. Even then, the electorate is unpredictable – members may not say they are backing a rival candidate if they know their MP is backing another.
There is one thing hugely in Truss’ favour, regardless of polling. She has the momentum. Often polls showing a candidate is the frontrunner have their own way of becoming self-fulfilling prophecies.
Truss now has a flood of endorsements from cabinet ministers such as Nadhim Zahawi and Brandon Lewis who think they can see which way the wind is blowing. Penny Mordaunt, who finished third in the leadership race, declared her support for the foreign secretary ahead of Monday’s hustings in Exeter.
Sunak was the candidate who once had that momentum – bringing on board Grant Shapps, Dominic Raab and Jeremy Hunt as big name backers who thought they were picking the winning horse. That might be a sign to everyone in this race that the wind can still change very quickly.
