Rishi Sunak, the former UK chancellor, won the first round of voting on Wednesday among Conservative MPs to be their party leader as two candidates were knocked out.
Jeremy Hunt, former health secretary, and chancellor Nadhim Zahawi failed to meet the requisite level of 30 Tory MPs backing them to get to the next round of voting in the contest to replace Boris Johnson as UK prime minister.
Six candidates are now left in the race. Sunak won 88 votes, with 67 going to trade minister Penny Mordaunt, 50 to foreign secretary Liz Truss, 40 to ex-equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, 37 to foreign affairs select committee chair Tom Tugendhat and 32 to attorney-general Suella Braverman.
One ally of Sunak said the former chancellor came first because he has “the clearest plan to restore trust, rebuild the economy, reunite the country and because he is best placed to beat Labour at the next election”.
The Sunak campaign insider added: “MPs are also recognising that Rishi has the best experience and plans to deal with the current economic situation. Rishi will rebuild our economy by gripping inflation and getting our economy growing quickly again.”
Mordaunt formally launched her campaign on Wednesday morning with a pledge to return to traditional Tory values of “low tax, a small state and personal responsibility”.
The mid-ranking trade minister said her low-tax, small-state, strong defence platform would help restore a “sense of self” to the party. “We don’t need a new role in the world — just to be ourselves,” she added.
Her campaign was boosted by a YouGov poll of Tory grassroots party members a few hours earlier that put her far ahead of all other candidates in a final run-off.
The odds on her winning the contest shortened after the poll suggested she would beat Sunak by 58 per cent to 31 per cent.
The leadership process will reduce the candidates by next week to a final pair who will then fight for the support of more than 100,000 Tory members ahead of a vote in early September.
The first televised debates of the contest will take place on Friday and Sunday with the five candidates expected to remain in the race, after one further candidate is eliminated in another round of voting on Thursday.