The field of hopefuls was reduced to four on Monday as outsider Tom Tugendhat, a favorite of centrist One Nation, was eliminated with just 31 votes. Former chancellor Rishi Sunak came close to securing a place on the list of two that will go to Tory MPs this summer, winning 14 votes to achieve 115 – five short of the 120 required. But Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’ campaign was left hanging in the balance after she failed to overhaul Penny Mordaunt in the race for second place, amid claims from rival camps that she had underperformed. The Truss group had hoped to secure a majority of the 27 MPs backing right-wing colleague Suella Braverman before she was eliminated on Friday. But despite Ms Braverman’s support, the Foreign Secretary managed just seven votes to reach 71, 11 short of Mordaunt’s tally of 82. With a large proportion of Mr Tugendhat’s supporters expected to turn to the international trade minister in the next round of voting on Tuesday, Ms Truss’ hopes will hinge on wooing supporters of “anti-awakening” rebel Kemi Badenoch. Ms Badenoch won nine votes to reach 58 but is very vulnerable to defeat in the fourth round of voting, giving her supporters a deciding say in who will join Mr Sunak on the ballot. With some polls suggesting the Tories’ roughly 200,000 members would favor either Ms Mordaud or Truss over Mr Sunack, prominent supporter Steve Baker said Boris Johnson’s successor could effectively be chosen by Ms Badenoch’s supporters. “It looks like in the last round, Kemi Badenoch’s supporters will decide whether Liz Truss or Penny Mordaunt becomes prime minister,” said arch-Eurosceptic Baker, a supporter of the foreign secretary. Mr Tugendhat, the only candidate who has never held ministerial office, said he was “overwhelmed” by the scale of his support, which he said showed the country was “ready for a clean start” that would “restore confidence in policy”. His team said it would wait until Tuesday to decide whether to back one of the remaining candidates, with supporter Anne-Marie Trevelyan saying his supporters would “travel in packs”. The chairman of the foreign affairs committee has been the subject of immediate approaches from rival camps, with Ms Mordaunt describing him as “a friend and colleague I have admired for years”. Ms Mordaunt, who shares a military background with Mr Tugendhat, added: “I know we are both committed to a clean start for our party and I believe that is one of the strongest assets on the Conservative Green benches.” Ms Badenoch’s supporter Neil O’Brien said Mr Tugendhat was now a “household name” who would “serve Britain at a high level again”. Ms Mordaunt’s supporter, George Freeman, said her camp was pleased to stay clear of the Foreign Secretary, despite missing one vote from the last round. “After three days of media bashing, I’m happy that he’s in second place,” the former science minister said. “No one has been more viciously attacked in the press.” Former Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith insisted Ms Truss “has momentum and will keep that momentum”. He added: “Penny is stopping… and I think Liz is in the right place to do that.” Chloe Smith MP, a member of the One Nation caucus campaigning for Ms Truss, called on moderate party colleagues to look to the foreign secretary for leadership again. Asked whether moderate supporters of Mr Tugendhat might now prefer to switch their support to Ms Mordaunt, Ms Smith told the BBC: “I would say to friends and colleagues – please come and see Liz’s wide range of experience.” Mrs Mordaunt came under fire from her boss for skipping work at the Department of International Trade to pursue her leadership ambitions. Ms Trevelyan, the international trade minister, told LBC radio: “There have been a number of times she has not been available, which would have been helpful, and other ministers have picked up the pieces.” A leadership debate between the three finalists scheduled for Tuesday night on Sky News has been canceled due to concerns about increasingly nasty blue-on-blue attacks damaging the Conservatives. Mr Sunak and Ms Truss declined to take part after the two previous televised spats ended in damaging public slang matches. Mr Johnson insisted the party would soon “unite in faith” around a new leader. But former Tory donor John Armitage said MPs in the Westminster bubble were unaware of the extent to which the party had been left “deep” by its outgoing leader. The billionaire hedge fund, who has given the Tories £3m in recent years but stopped donating in February complaining of a “lack of honour”, told the BBC: “Most MPs and most commentators don’t really realize how deep the conservatives are in. “I think people in the country are fed up with a regime that has put up with a dishonorable and bad prime minister for too long.”
