Tory leadership contest: Poll shows Ben Wallace is favorite to be next PM

Tory MP Ben Wallace is the favorite among Tory members to replace Boris Johnson as party leader and Prime Minister, according to new polls.

Defence Secretary beats all others candidates in the YouGov poll of Conservative party members on who they would vote for.

The pollster asked members who they would pick in a head-to-head competition, asking about different scenarios with different candidates.

In all scenarios featuring Mr Wallace, he wins by a significant margin.

The former soldier and MP for Wyre and Preston North, who played a leading role in the UK's response to the war in Ukraine, also tops members' preferences overall, albeit by a smaller margin.

Conservative members of the base will ultimately decide who will become prime minister, but they will only have the choice between the last two candidates, selected from a wider field by the Conservative MPs.

This means that Mr Wallace may not qualify for the bottom two if he cannot build a sufficiently large base of support within the parliamentary party in Westminster.

Mr. Wallace beats Liz Truss 48% to 29%, Penny Mordaunt 48% to 26%, Rishi Sunak 51% to 30%, and Jeremy Hunt 58% to 22%. 'a wide open field of candidates as the first preference vote with 13%, just ahead of Ms Mordaunt with 12% and Mr Sunak with 10%.

Liz Truss follows with 8% while Michael Gove and Dominic Raab is at 7% each. Tom Tugenhadt polls 6%, just ahead of Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi at 5% and Sajid Javid at 4%.

But Tory members are only part of the story and all candidates will have to survive the first rounds of the competition and obtain the approval of their fellow MPs.

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