Tory leadership frontrunner emerges in key new poll of members
One candidate takes a third of the vote in new survey of the Conservative grassroots.
Kemi Badenoch has topped a new poll of Tory members on who should be the party's next leader.
The shadow housing secretary takes 33% of the vote in the survey by the influential Conservative Home website.
Ms Badenoch, who is a darling on the right of the party due to her combative anti-woke approach, is up seven points from last month's poll.
Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who sparked controversy this week for saying protesters shouting “Allahu Akbar” should be arrested, is in second place up six points with 19%.
Centrist candidates Tom Tudenghat and James Cleverly are level on 10%, with the shadow security minister down two points and the shadow home secretary up one.
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Former home secretary Dame Priti Patel, a longstanding Eurosceptic on the right of the party, is up five points on 8%.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, a close ally of Rishi Sunak, is on 2%.
Meanwhile, almost one in five respondents in the poll of 917 Conservative members - which was conducted from August 5-7 - said they did not know.
The six senior Tories, who secured the support of 10 MPs in order to enter the race, are battling it out to replace Mr Sunak as the Conservative Party seeks to rebuild after its worst-ever general election result last month.
MPs will vote off two of the contenders so the final four go to the party's conference in Birmingham next month to make their leadership pitch.
Conservative MPs will then eliminate two more, with the final pair going to a ballot of Tory members with the winner announced on November 2.
The poll found that the majority of respondents - 59% - agreed with the backbench 1922 Committee's timetable for the leadership contest.
Some 34% said the race should have been wrapped up before the conference, while one in 20 said it was too short and should have run into December or the New Year.
Meanwhile, 41% backed the structure with MPs voting in two sections before members choose between the final two candidates.
