After five hard-fought rounds of voting by Tory MPs, Truss and Sunak will now battle in the summer for the support of 150,000 members to succeed Johnson as the party’s next leader. Although the former chancellor received the most votes among MPs, Truss is the favorite to win the contest based on her popularity with party members. According to Ladbrokes, the odds of her being the next leader of the Conservative party are 4/7, while Sunak is at 11/8. While Sunak is pursuing a similar economic platform to his time as Johnson’s chancellor, focusing mainly on tackling inflation, the more right-wing Truss has promised sweeping tax cuts and deregulation. Sunak, who came first in each round of voting, won the support of 137 MPs, followed by Truss on 113. Penny Mordant, the trade secretary who was in second place until the final vote, was excluded. The focus of the contest will shift from Westminster to the wider Tory party. The first televised debate between Sunak and Truss will take place on Monday, followed by a dozen regional meetings. Ballots will be sent out in early August and the result will be announced on September 5. In a video message to his supporters, Sunak said he was the “only” person who could beat Labor at the next election. “We need to restore trust, rebuild the economy and bring the country back together. I am confident that we can do this and we have a really positive message to convey to our members.” Tras, meanwhile, emphasized her experience in government. “I’m the person who can go to Number 10, I can hit the ground running and I can get things done,” he said. Polls show Truss ahead of Mr Sunak among Tory party members, with many campaigners disliking his record as a tax-raising chancellor and his perceived disloyalty to Johnson. But Mr Sunak’s supporters pointed to his background in the government’s most important economic post, his debate performances and polls which showed him best placed to defeat Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer. Both Sunak and Truss campaigns are gearing up to make the campaign more personal. The former chancellor is likely to be attacked by Johnson’s allies over his financial record, while the foreign secretary will face criticism for backing Remain in the 2016 referendum. Senior Labor figures said Truss and Sunak would both be easy targets if they became prime minister during the cost-of-living crisis. “The only candidate we were afraid of was Boris Johnson and he’s gone,” said one member of the shadow cabinet. “He had this uncanny ability to somehow distance himself from day-to-day events, to be somehow above responsibility, and nobody else in his party has that.”
