UK Prime Minister Race Tightens As Rishi Sunak Closes In On Liz Truss

The Prime Minister race in the United Kingdom continues to tighten on Tuesday as Rishi Sunak closes in on fellow Prime Minister challenger Liz Truss, even as Truss appears to have gotten the endorsement of many high-profile players in the party.

A private poll conducted by Techne where they interviewed 807 Conservative Party members shows that Liz Truss was leading against Rishi Sunak by only five points, with Sunak appearing to slowly bridge the gap between him and his challenger, according to the Guardian.

However, a concurrent poll done by YouGov for the Times shows that Truss continues to lead against Sunak by over 34 points, placing the former frontrunner Sunak way behind Truss and providing a conflicting picture of the Prime Minister race, Reuters reported.

Truss has been making headways in edging out her opponent for the Prime Minister race, including getting the endorsement of Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt after Truss triumphed against her in the last Prime Minister vote between the three, according to the BBC.

“At the start of this final phase of this contest, I didn't know the answer to those questions, but I've seen enough to know who the person I'm going to put my faith in is - and that is Liz Truss,” Mordaunt said.

Truss also has the endorsement of Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, while Sunak appears to have gotten the endorsement of well-respected senior members of the party, including former cabinet ministers Liam Fox and Damian Green.

“We will need a leader and a prime minister, with the right policies, yes, but with character, with courage, with experience and with intellect, and the downright decency to swing those voters behind us and get them to vote Conservative,” Fox said when explaining his support of Sunak. “I believe that leader, that prime minister, will be Rishi Sunak.”

Despite the results of the polling, many analysts believe that the race is still up in the air as Sunak and Truss battle for their party’s favor with their policies on taxes and Brexit, and that there remains a chance for a flip in opinions before the next vote.

“We have to bear in mind that since Tory MPs decided that this was the contest between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, we have had one, I repeat one, opinion poll of the people who will actually have a vote, that is Conservative members. But that poll is now nearly a fortnight old,” expert Sir John Curtice said.