Kemi Badenoch and James Cleverly are now in a “fight to the death” to get through to the final run-off in the Conservative leadership race, senior MPs believe.
Bookies’ favourite Robert Jenrick is thought to have already secured the support of enough MPs to make it to the last two.
Tom Tugendhat is widely expected to be the next candidate to drop out of the race when the next ballot of MPs takes place a week from now.
That would leave Badenoch and Cleverly battling it out for the right to go head-to-head with Jenrick in the final phase of the campaign, in which party members will decide who replaces Rishi Sunak as leader.
Cleverly is seen as the candidate with the wind in his sails at the end of the Tories’ annual conference in Birmingham.
His set-piece speech, in which he urged the party to “be more normal” and pledged to put a smile back on its face, went down well in the hall.
The former home secretary has also succeeded in avoiding any controversy – unlike Badenoch.
A source on his campaign said: “The momentum is well and truly with James. He has always loved conference and the last few days have seen him thrive.”
Badenoch, on the other hand, has been embroiled in rows over her views on immigration, maternity pay, the national minimum wage and even whether thousands of civil servants deserve to be behind bars.
One veteran MP said: “Kemi just reaffirmed people’s worst fears that if she was leader there would be a gaffe a day. All the rest of us would then have to spend all our time having to explain what she meant.
“Her campaign has appeared chaotic and she hasn’t done as much flesh-pressing as the others. Some colleagues were saying they had seen the other candidates three or four times but only seen her once, which plays into concerns about her work ethic.”
And while her final speech to the conference gained pass marks, one former minister said it wasn’t the “humdinger” she needed to overtake Jenrick.
“It went down very well in the hall, and the content was good, even if the delivery wasn’t great,” the MP said.
However, a Badenoch campaign source told HuffPost UK they were “very happy” with how the week has gone.
“She was the only candidate anyone was talking about all week, proving that she is the only candidate with the star quality to cut through in opposition,” the source said.
“The membership loved her. Polls of members released during the conference put her ahead. The speech is winning plaudits. And two big hitters in David Davis and Helen Grant came out and endorsed her shortly after she’d finished speaking.”
While Cleverly’s campaign has undoubtedly been buoyed by the last few days, party insiders believe he still needs to persuade MPs who had been planning to vote for Badenoch to switch to him if he is to have any chance of winning.
One undecided MP said: “James showed that he’s an experienced pro and would able to hit the ground running if he wins. He also answered some of the doubts about whether he really wants it.
“But has been at the heart of everything for last five years, so can he credibly claim that he will deliver change as leader? That’s his challenge now, because he’s in a fight to the death with Kemi for the second slot on the ballot.”
