London: Former British chancellor Rishi Sunak is the preferred candidate to replace UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson among swing voters, according to a new poll.
The new YouGov survey comes as the candidates prepare for the first official Tory meeting in Leeds tonight, as the contest intensifies in the race for the top job in the UK.
A British Internet-based research firm said while Sunak is more popular with swing voters than his rival, both are unpopular with the overall public. It also says that Sunak edges over Liz Truss by four points with people who voted Tory in 2019 but say they don’t know how they would vote in an election.
“With the Conservative leadership contest now whittled down to two candidates – Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss – YouGov polling of almost 5,000 Britons can reveal that, although both politicians are considerably unpopular with the public as a whole, Sunak has a significant edge over Truss among swing voters,” said Patrick English, Associate Director of YouGov.
The new YouGov survey states that net favourability scores currently stand at -30 for Sunak and -32 for Truss among the Brits are large. “Neither can be characterised as popular.”
According to the survey, it is important to note at the same time that Liz Truss’ name recognition is still significantly below Rishi Sunak’s.
“While only 13 per cent of the public don’t know enough about the former Chancellor to say how they feel about him, the figure is more than double that for Truss (29 per cent). Truss then has much more headroom with the public to improve her ratings quickly than Sunak does – though equally, those ratings could well decline as the public become more familiar with her,” the survey said.
Last week, Conservative Party members voted to send both Sunak and Truss through to the final stage of the party’s leadership contest in the race to replace Boris Johnson.
Earlier, UK Foreign Secretary Truss was said to be leading the Tory leadership race against Sunak.
The final two candidates, fighting for the UK Prime Minister’s post, have gone head-to-head in a television debate in the previous round, clashing over the state of the economy, including each other’s tax and spending plans.
This Tuesday’s Tory leadership debate between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss was cancelled after presenter Kate McCann fainted and collapsed live on air.
The Tory leadership race was triggered after Johnson was forced to step down on July 7 amid an avalanche of resignations of government officials, who protested against his scandal-plagued leadership. Johnson will continue to serve as caretaker prime minister until a new Tory leader succeeds him.
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