Three Conservative leadership candidates remain after Kemi Badenoch was eliminated on Tuesday.
Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, and Liz Truss will proceed onto the fifth ballot on Wednesday when the final two contestants will be selected.
Sunak remains the front runner with 118 votes, picking up only three of the 32 floating votes after Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Tugendhat was knocked out of the race on Monday.
Mordant secured 92 votes from Conservative MPs, appearing to gain 11 votes from the Tugendhat camp while losing the vote of Tobias Ellwood, who’s banned from voting after he was stripped of Conservative Party membership on Tuesday for abstaining in a confidence vote in Johnson’s government.
Truss closed the gap further with 86 votes, only six votes fewer than Mordant, and 32 behind Sunak.
Despite being a more right-wing candidate, Truss became the biggest winner after Tugendhat’s elimination, gaining 15 supporters from the more left-leaning one-nation candidate.
The league table has remained the same on the first four parliamentary ballots, but the status quo could be changed on Wednesday as it’s widely believed a large portion of Badenoch’s 59 supporters will go to Truss or Mordant.
One more candidate will be eliminated on Wednesday, before around 160,000 Conservative Party members choose a winner between the final contestants by Sept. 5.
The BBC confirmed it will host a live TV debate between the final two candidates at 9 p.m. on Monday, broadcast on BBC One.
Badenoch and Truss were the most popular among grassroots party members, according to the poll, with Badenoch very slightly ahead.
Mordaunt, who previously topped the popularity contest, lost ground after two televised debates, but was still closely trailing behind Badenoch and Truss and far more popular than Sunak.
Sunak is the only candidate opposing immediate tax cuts, arguing it will worsen inflation. He has also faced questions over his handling of COVID-19 loan fraud and record on defence spending during his chancellorship and his stance over trade with the Chinese regime.
Truss and Mordaunt both said they will cut some taxes, with Truss saying Sunak’s high tax policy will drive the UK into recession.
Sunak defended his record, blaming the tax rises on the “once-in-a-century” COVID-19 pandemic. He also labeled the other candidates’ tax-cut policies as “something-for-nothing economics.”
Despite having voted to remain in the European Union in the 2016 referendum, Truss gained the support of many hardline Brexiteer MPs after she secured a number of trade deals and demonstrated her willingness to override part of the Brexit deal regarding Northern Ireland.
Mordaunt has stressed her ability to gain votes from Labour, citing her election in Portsmouth North, a seat held by Labour for the prior 13 years. She denied having pushed for gender self-ID while in government after Badenoch suggested she had.
All candidates have committed to the UK’s net-zero goal to become carbon neutral by 2050. Badenoch, the only candidate who previously refused to stick to the target, appeared to have softened her stance following pressure from a climate husting on Monday, but the move failed to save her from being eliminated from the race.
