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Kemi Badenoch is facing a battle to avoid dropping to third place in the Tory leadership race as MPs prepare to eliminate another of the contenders on Tuesday.
The shadow housing secretary came second in the first round of voting last week, just one vote ahead of James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary.
Her supporters now fear she could be overtaken by Mr Cleverly because of “vote lending” by other candidates to manipulate the result.
Momentum is important in any leadership race, meaning Mrs Badenoch is keen to avoid going backwards in the pecking order, but her supporters are confident she will be able to use the party conference later this month to reset her campaign and show how much support she has among members.
Mrs Badenoch regularly tops polls of Conservative Party members when they are asked who they want to succeed Rishi Sunak.
Several of the original six candidates – who will be reduced to four in the next vote – have accused rival camps of what one described as “playing games” by trying to sabotage the chances of others who pose the greatest threat.
Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, topped the first poll of Tory MPs last week with 28 votes, six clear of Mrs Badenoch. She was one vote ahead of Mr Cleverly, followed by shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat in fourth place, shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride in fifth, and former home secretary Dame Priti Patel, who was eliminated in last place.
Sources close to Dame Priti believe Mr Cleverly will pick up about half of her votes, while Mr Tugendhat says more than one of Dame Priti’s supporters have already switched to him, suggesting Mr Cleverly will have enough votes to overtake Mrs Badenoch.
Dame Priti’s team are convinced that some MPs were hoodwinked into backing candidates who were supposedly struggling – in order to keep them in the race – without realising it would mean Right-wing candidate Dame Priti would be knocked out.
Mr Tugendhat, who did worse than expected, told The Telegraph last week that some MPs had been “played” and now felt bitter about it.
Mrs Badenoch was the early favourite with bookies to become the next Conservative leader, and while Mr Jenrick’s victory in the first round came as a surprise to many, some rival camps calculated that he had well over 30 supporters, not just 28, meaning that several of his votes were “loaned” to other candidates, something Mr Jenrick’s team denies.
Head-to-head polling
Mr Jenrick is understood to have Tory Party enforcer Dougie Smith on his team, while Mr Cleverly has Grant Shapps, the former home secretary and “master of the spreadsheet”, working for him.
Such is the level of suspicion among Conservative MPs that supporters of Mr Jenrick and Mrs Badenoch both think Michael Gove is working for the other camp, even though friends of Mr Gove – who is no longer an MP – insist he is not involved at all.
The party could face a revolt from its members if they are denied the chance to choose between the candidates they most favour when MPs whittle the field down to two in October and give the final choice to the membership.
One Conservative MP said: “If Kemi knocks their socks off at conference it makes it very difficult for the MPs not to put her into the final two.”
Polling by the Conservative Home website suggests that Mrs Badenoch will win the contest if she makes it into the final two, as she wins in head-to-head polling against every other candidate.
Moderates’ support
The back markers in the contest spent Monday scrambling for votes before and after an internal hustings event.
Mr Tugendhat’s team are concerned that he could end up being eliminated, despite coming fourth in the first round of voting, as moderates gravitate towards Mr Cleverly.
Mr Cleverly also received a boost with the publication of a new poll by Savanta that showed he is the most popular choice among the general public out of the five remaining candidates.
Mr Cleverly was rated as the preferred choice for prime minister by 23 per cent of respondents, but in a head-to-head with Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader won comfortably with 47 per cent.
Sir Keir also beat all the other Tory leadership contenders in head-to-head polling.
Accusations about vote lending and stitch-ups are fuelled in part by the belief that any contender with a genuine chance of getting to the last two wants to make sure they are not up against Mrs Badenoch in the head-to-head.
Mrs Badnoch has about a third of the shadow cabinet publicly backing her, and has also earned the backing of Andrew Snowden, who originally backed Dame Priti.
