Last night at around 8pm I launched a 13 question Conservative leadership poll. Since then more than 4,000 people have voted. I don't pretend that this is anything other than a bit of fun. It's certainly not scientific. Polls like this cannot be taken hugely seriously because they can easily be influenced by the fact that there is no guarantee that all those who voted are Conservative supporters, and supporters of one of the candidates could have marshalled their troops to launch mass votes. If they did, it's clear that only Boris Johnson succeeded.
There are five main conclusions I can draw from this...
- Boris Johnson's popularity remains relatively undimmed despite his mediocre performance since his resignation.
- Michael Gove is still distrusted and doesn't really feature in the leadership rankings, slightly to my surprise
- Dominic Raab has emerged as the 'young turk' challenger having demonstrated to Boris Johnson how to behave after a resignation
- David Davis remains a serious contender
- Penny Mordaunt has made little impact as the putative 'dark horse' candidate
So let's see how our 36 candidates fared among the 4,000 who voted...
- Boris Johnson 971, 23.38%
- Jacob Rees-Mogg 738, 17.77%
- Dominic Raab 370, 8.91%
- David Davis 352, 8.48%
- Sajid Javid 229, 5.51%
- Amber Rudd 172, 4.14%
- Johnny Mercer 168, 4.05%
- Jeremy Hunt 145%, 3.49%
- Ruth Davidson 136, 3.27%
- Michael Gove 111, 2.67%
- Geoffrey Cox 79, 1.49%
- Jo Johnson 76, 1.83%
- Penny Mordaunt 69, 1.66%
- Priti Patel 63, 1.52%
- Justine Greening 60, 1.44%
- Rory Stewart 57, 1.37%
- Tom Tugendhat 48, 1.16%
- James Cleverly 48, 1.16%
- Esther McVey 31, 0.75%
- Tobias Ellwood 28, 0.67%
- Liz Truss 27, 0.65%
- Nicky Morgan 22, 0.53%
- Tracey Crouch 19, 0.46%
- Philip Hammond 19, 0.46%
- Andrea Leadsom 19, 0.46%
- David Lidington 17, 0.41%
- Gavin Williamson, 14, 0.34%
- Graham Brady 10, 0.24%
- Brandon Lewis 10, 0.24%
- Matthew Hancock 10, 0.24%
- Philip Lee 8, 0.19%
- Liam Fox 7, 0.17%
- Greg Clark 7, 0.17%
- David Gauke 6, 0.14%
- Nick Boles 4, 0.10%
- George Freeman 3, 0.07%
There are certainly a few surprises there. I suspect Liam Fox and Andrea Leadsom will be horrified by their lack of support. Johnny Mercer, however, will be rather pleased by his top ten showing.
I then reduced the field to the most serious 8 contenders.
- Boris Johnson 1480, 35.71%
- David Davis 689, 16.62
- Dominic Raab 521, 12.57%
- Amber Rudd 438, 10.57%
- Sajid Javid 437, 10.54%
- Jeremy Hunt 238, 5.74%
- Michael Gove 183, 4.41%
- Penny Mordaunt 159, 3.84%
I then posed several final two runoff scenarios...
- Boris Johnson 51%
- David Davis 49%
- Sajid Javid 56%
- Jeremy Hunt 44%
- Boris Johnson 63%
- Sajid Javid 37%
- David Davis 56%
- Dominic Raab 44%
- Boris Johnson 69%
- Michael Gove 31%
- Boris Johnson 73%
- Amber Rudd 27%
- Jacob Rees-Mogg 53%
- Boris Johnson 47%
So, what do we conclude from all this? Possibly that I have more Boris Johnson fans that I thought I did. Or that a lot of Labour people voted for him, maybe?! I think if I were David Davis or Dominic Raab I'd feel quite pleased. Raab has certainly developed as a serious contender.
I've always held the view that if Boris Johnson made it through the parliamentary stage, he'd walk the party membership. This poll adds weight to that argument. If he doesn't make it onto the membership ballot, the party membership will be in uproar. But given the Remainer majority in the parliamentary party it is quite easy to envisage a situation where the final two could be Sajid Javid and Amber Rudd, or Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt. This is where the David Davis/Dominic Raab conundrum comes into play. If they both stood against each other they run the risk of neither of them getting through to the final two.
Of course, we're not at the stage yet, where a contest will take place. But we're probably not that far off.
Later today I'll be posting a poll on Theresa May's Brexit deal and the parliamentary vote. So do come back later.
