Liz Truss in commanding lead over Rishi Sunak

The U.K. prime ministerial race frontrunner, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, continues to hold on to a commanding 22-point lead over former Chancellor Rishi Sunak in the Conservative Party leadership contest, according to a new survey of Tory members on August 14, 2022.

In an Opinium poll for ‘The Observer’ newspaper of 570 Conservative members with a vote in the election, Ms. Truss is on 61% and the British Indian former minister is on 39%. With under three weeks to go before the September 2 deadline for postal and online votes to be cast by the membership to elect a successor to outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Mr. Sunak seems to have closed the gap only slightly in recent days.

“From the moment we knew the final two candidates, it has been clear that Truss has had all the momentum, and our latest poll sets out just how large her lead among the party members has become,” Chris Curtis of Opinium told the newspaper.

“With many members having



already returned their ballot papers, it is now very unlikely Truss won’t become Prime Minister in September. It’s clear that Sunak’s biggest problem is trust. While some members respect his economic arguments, this hasn’t been enough to overcome the view among members that he isn’t honest or trustworthy enough for the top job, particularly after he called for Johnson to go,” he said.

Opinium’s detailed questioning also uncovers a striking lack of enthusiasm for either candidate when members are asked whether they would prefer one of them to Johnson to run the party and country. When offered the choice of Johnson still being in No. 10 Downing Street, or Truss taking over, around 63% of Tory members polled said they would prefer Johnson to be still in charge against 22% who wanted Truss. On the other side, 68 per cent said they would prefer to still have Johnson than see him replaced by Sunak, who was preferred by just 19 per cent.