Kemi Badenoch was today booted out of the Tory leadership contest - leaving a ferocious three-way battle to get on the final ballot.
The insurgent “anti-woke” candidate defied expectations to win nearly 60 MPs’ backing - but was knocked out in by voting MPs.
Rishi Sunak is still in the lead among MPs with 118 votes - two off the 120 threshold he needs to be guaranteed a spot on the ballot.
That leaves Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt - just six votes apart - to battle it out to make the final ballot of two-candidates, which will be announced at 4pm tomorrow.
Only the last two can go forward to a vote by 180,000 Tory members, with the winner becoming Prime Minister on September 6.
Ms Badenoch won 59 votes while Rishi Sunak won 118, Penny Mordaunt won 92 - gaining 10 - and Liz Truss won 86, gaining 15.
That will spark a frenetic 25 hours of horse-trading with campaigns contemplating "lending" their votes to others to keep one candidate off the ballot.
Right-wingers have swung behind Liz Truss and all eyes will be on where Kemi Badenoch's 59 backers decide to put their votes. They are unlikely to all move as one block.
Rishi Sunak supporter Chris Skidmore told Sky News: “I wouldn’t put it past some of the other teams to be doing a bit of horse-trading. There may be some rival teams backing others to try to get through to that final second spot.”
Rishi Sunak is still the frontrunner for No10 but Penny Mordaunt was hoping to win supporters who backed Tom Tugendhat, who was ejected from the battle on Monday.
And Liz Truss was desperate to secure more support ahead of the last round of voting on Wednesday.
It came as top Tory Michael Gove admitted the most basic parts of government are “simply not functioning”.
The long-serving former Cabinet minister - who was sacked by Boris Johnson two weeks ago -told the Policy Exchange think tank: “I believe that there are certain central functions that the state needs to do better - and which we fail to deliver at the moment.
“There are some core functions - giving you your passport, your driving licence - which are simply at the moment not functioning.”
The 42-year-old former Equalities Minister, who became an MP in 2017, held a packed launch event where she was applauded by star backer Michael Gove.
She pointed out she “flipped burgers” at McDonald's aged 16 but was also born to a GP and professor and worked at Coutts private bank.
At a launch event Ms Badenoch hit out at her rivals, saying Tories should “stop pretending” they can cut taxes and the state can do everything it currently does.
She added: "I will not enter into a tax bidding war and say my tax cuts are bigger than yours. The dividing line in this race is not tax cuts, it's judgment."
And she said there would be an end to cost-of-living payments like those offered by Rishi Sunak if she enters 10 Downing Street on September 5.
Ms Badenoch also called for the Winter Fuel Payment - worth between £250 to £600 and currently paid to all state pensioners - to be more means-tested.
She devoted much of her 11-minute launch speech to ‘culture war’ spats, vowing to “discard the priorities of Twitter ” and “the Ben and Jerry’s tendency” for firms to put “social justice” over profit.
Ms Badenoch demanded police stop “worrying about hurt feelings online” and said “tick box exercises in sustainability, diversity and equality” were not the “core mission”.
She said “the right has lost its confidence and its courage”, the government has "caved in" to social justice campaigners.
And she branded the pledge to hit Net Zero emissions by 2050 "unilateral economic disarmament” - though she later suggested she might still keep it.
