ONLY 11% of the British public can name Penny Mordaunt from her picture alone, a SavantaComRes poll has found.
When it comes to Conservative Party members only 16% managed to guess correctly, and according to a pollster two respondents mistakenly identified her as chart-topper Adele.
Former chancellor Rishi Sunak was the most identifiable candidate in the poll - with 66% of the public and 77% of Tory members correctly naming him based on his portrait.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss languished in the middle, with 33% of the public correctly naming her compared to 45% of Tory members.
Unsurprisingly, the study found that recent Cabinet members were more identifiable.
Mordaunt served as secretary of defence under Theresa May in 2019 and was the first woman to take on the role, but since then has returned to government first as the paymaster general in 2020, and then moved to her current role as trade policy minister in the 2021 reshuffle.
Pollster Chris Hopkins shared the results of the study on social media, adding: "New poll from @SavantaComRes finds just 11% of the public and 16% of Conservative voters can correctly name Penny Mordaunt when shown a photo of her."
New poll from @SavantaComRes finds just 11% of the public and 16% of Conservative voters can correctly name Penny Mordaunt when shown a photo of her. Sunak 66% Truss 33% Mordaunt 11% pic.twitter.com/tm5CEpVZ7D
— Chris Hopkins (@ChrisHopkins92) July 13, 2022
The poll was conducted between July 8 and 10 last week, and 2208 UK adults were asked for their views.
Hopkins explained the methodology behind the poll and said all respondents were shown the Prime Ministerial hopeful's official parliamentary portrait and asked "Who is this person?". Those taking part were also given the option to choose "don't know".
Those who managed to guess the MPs correct job title, ie former chancellor or foreign secretary, but not their full name were put down as an incorrect guess - but misspellings within reason were allowed.
Hopkins added: "We went into field Friday, and asked about all 11 candidates declared/rumoured then.
"Generally, and unsurprisingly, Cabinet ministers performed better."
On Mordaunt specifically, he added: "Two people thought it was Adele (their other open end responses were high-quality, so it didn't *look* like a joke).
"One respondent said 'Penelope Mordaunt (gorgeous)'."
Mordaunt launched her leadership campaign on Wednesday morning with a bizarre pot shot at Paul McCartney - claiming that at his Glastonbury performance everyone wanted to "hear the good old stuff" and not any of his new tunes.
Linking this to her leadership bid, Mordaunt said that for Tory members backing her would mean: “Low tax, small state, personal responsibility.”
