Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi have been eliminated from the Conservative leadership contest after the first round of voting.
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee announced the results. Here are all 8 of the candidates, and the number of votes they received:
Badenoch 40
Braverman 32
Hunt 18
Mordaunt 67
Sunak 88
Truss 50
Tugendhat 37
Zahawi 25
Jeremy Hunt and Nadhim Zahawi both failed to reach the minimum threshold of 30 votes to progress to the next round of the contest.
From now onwards the 2 candidates with the least votes will be eliminated, irrespective of how many votes they get until there are just two remaining.
There is already speculation around who Hunt and Zahawi will back now. Hunt is known to be on the ‘one-nation’ side of the party, so is expected to back Rishi Sunak or Tom Tugendhat. There is currently less certainty around Zahawi’s stance.
Jeremy Hunt took to Twitter after the result, saying:
“I want to thank my incredible team of loyal and talented supporters who put their faith in me. It’s become obvious to me you only get one big shot at this, and I had mine in 2019.”
Nadhim Zahawi issued a statement, also thanking his colleagues support. He added that his priority remains with his role of chancellor and that he “does not intend to make any further interventions, but wishes all the other candidates in the leadership contest the very best of luck!”.
Rishi Sunak remains in the lead, followed by Penny Mordaunt.
The post Hunt and Zahawi eliminated from leadership contest appeared first on Politics.co.uk.
