Badenoch risks dropping to third in Tory leadership race, fear supporters

Kemi Badenoch will be in fight to remain above third place in the Tory leadership race when another of the competitors is due to be culled on Tuesday. 
 
He was behind Mr John Healey in the first ballot the previous week by only one vote, itself a close second to James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary. 
 
Her supporters now feel that she is vulnerable to being defeated by Mr Cleverly due to cases of ‘vote pulsing’ by other candidates. 
 
Horse trading is important in any leadership race; meaning that Mrs Badenoch will be very reluctant to let her position in Mr Johnson camp drop any lower than where it is, but her people believe that after the party conference in the forth coming this month she will be able to recapture the momentum and show how strong she is amongst the membership. 
 
Mrs Badenoch is always at the top of the polls every time, the Conservative Party members are asked whom they would like to succeed Rishi Sunak. 
 
Some of the original six candidates – four of which will be eliminated in the next round – have complained about other groups doing what one of them called ‘playing games’ and attempting to lose for the other most dangerous candidates. 
 
The ex-immigration minister, Robert Jenrick led in the first ballot with 28 votes, six ahead 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 and contestant Dame Priti Patel did not make it through to the next round. 
 
Some insiders have informed the friends of Dame Priti that Mr Cleverly is going to garner about 50% of votes of Dame Priti, while according to the statement of Mr Tugendhat, more than one of the voters who supported Dame Priti are now with him, therefore, as it will be seen, Mr Cleverly is going to amass sufficient number of votes to triumph over Mrs Badenoch. 
 
Dame Priti’s team are certain that some MPs were manipulated into supporting candidates who were presented as performing badly – to ensure they continue their campaign – but would eliminate Right-wing candidate Dame Priti in the process. 
 
Mr Tugendhat, who scored lower than predictions, said during an interview with the Telegraph last week some of the MPs felt ‘played’ and thus are angry. 
 
Mrs Badenoch was the early frontrunner in the running to take over as the party leader according to bookmakers while Mr Jenrick shocked many when he won the initial round of voting Some of the loser campbeliefs that Mr Jenrick had if over 30 votes which where sold to him meaning that some votes where given to othereadenoch] candidates by those who preferred him to have them removed for the Carsh vote given to 
 
Head-to-head polling 
 
Currently, Mr Cleverly enjoys the services of former home secretary and ‘lord of the spreadsheets’ Grant Shapps. 
 
This is the extent that Tory MPs are expecting a sneak attack that the backers of Mr Jenrick and Mrs Badenoch, both are under the impression that Michael Gove is an operative in the other team, even though the friends of Mr Gove who is not a member of parliament anymore assert that he is not involved in the operation. 
 
The party may well itself face a mutiny by its members if these are barred from having the one they most prefer out of the candidates when the MPs in October have cut the list down to two before finally leaving the final decision to them. 
 
One Conservative MP said: “The MPs will be hard pressed not to place Kemi in the final two if she knocks their socks off at the conference. ” 
 
Polling conducted by the Conservative Home website shows that if Mrs Badenoch makes it to the last two then she is likely to win the competition because of the head to head poll triumph over any other contender. 
 
Moderates’ support 
 
Most of the back markers in the contest were shaking the trees on Monday in search of votes, before and after the vote in their mini-convention known as hustings. 
 
Mr Tugendhat’s team are worried that despite finishing fourth in the first round of voting he could be eliminated while the moderates move to Mr Cleverly. 
 
He was also given a boost today by the publication of the new Savanta poll which revealed that to the general public he is the preferred choice out of the remaining five. 
 
When it comes to who is seen as preferred choice for the position of Prime Minister, 23 per cent chose Mr Cleverly while in direct competition with the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the latter wins convincingly with 47 per cent. 
 
But Sir Keir also outranked all the other Tory leadership contenders in direct comparison voting. 
 
Claims of vote lending and stitch-ups are partly predicated on a perception that any potential hopeful who deems himself or herself capable of humbling it down to the last contender understandably does not wish to wake up and find himself or herself in a face-off with Mrs Badenoch. 
 
Mrs Badnoch has secured one-third of the shadow cabinet publicly supporting her and is also now supported by Andrew Snowden who initially used to support Dame Priti.