Kemi Badenoch’s victory in the elections for the leadership of the Conservative Party was not overwhelming. He won just a third of MPs’ support in the final round, just one vote ahead of his rival Robert Jenrick. His share of the members’ vote in the final round is also the lowest ever obtained by a winner under the current system, in which a vote among MPs is followed by a vote of the members.

Conservative MPs are evenly divided between MPs on the right of the party (who support Badenoch, Jenrick and Priti Patel) and the center of the party (those who support James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat and Mel Stride).

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Centrists ruined their chances of getting one of their candidates into the final round when Cleverly supporters conducted an uncoordinated tactical vote to keep the strongest right-wing candidate out. This backfired spectacularly and simply served to increase the support levels of both of Cleverly’s rivals at the expense of his own.

I have been collecting information in public statements by parliamentarians to find out how support for the last two candidates was divided. It has been a difficult exercise as MPs have been less forthcoming about who they supported in this race compared to previous races. When members’ voting closed, only 47.5% of MPs revealed who they supported: 30 MPs backed Badenoch and 27 backed Jenrick.

Demographically, Badenoch attracted a higher proportion of female and ethnic minority MPs (27% and 20% of its support respectively, compared to 22% and 7% for Jenrick). Of the five Conservative LGBT MPs, only one made a public statement of support, and that was for Badenoch.

There is also a clear division of experiences. MPs from the new 2024 cohort represent just 7% of Badenoch’s support, compared to 26% of Jenrick’s. MPs who have held opposition positions, and are therefore more experienced, make up 80% of Badenoch’s public supporters, compared to just 44% for Jenrick’s side.

We also see some interesting divisions regarding previous leadership elections (note that I have excluded the new cohort of MPs from this part of the analysis).

Half of Jenrick’s support base backed Liz Truss in 2022, compared to 32% of Badenoch’s base, and the figures are basically reversed in the case of support for Sunak. Interestingly, of the eight MPs who publicly backed Badenoch in 2022, four supported her again in 2024, while the other four backed Jenrick.

In the second of the 2022 leadership contests, 61% of Badenoch supporters backed Sunak, compared to just 35% for Jenrick. Notably, none of the ten MPs who backed Boris Johnson publicly backed Badenoch this time, compared to five who backed Jenrick.

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We can also observe the relationship between affiliation with conservative-aligned groups and support for candidates. MPs associated with one-nation groups (Bright Blue, One Nation Conservatives and Tory Reform Group) were evenly distributed across both sides. These MPs represent 45% of the total Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP) and totaled 46% of Badenoch’s support and 45% of Jenrick’s.

Jenrick, however, fared much better between Badenoch’s culturally conservative Common Sense Group (20% compared to 4%) and the eurosceptic European Research Group (40% of his support base, compared to 25% of the of Badenoch, although the difference in the raw figures is only one MP). We also see that China’s group of hardline MPs is leaning towards Jenrick: despite representing 14% of the PCP, they represent 30% of Jenrick’s support compared to 11% of Badenoch’s.

On the economic dimension, Badenoch won a larger proportion of the relatively small free-market MPs (those affiliated with the Institute of Economic Affairs’ Free Market Forum or the Canzuk Conservatives, who want a realignment of post-Brexit foreign affairs towards Canada , Australia and New Zealand) – 11% versus 5% for Jenrick.

MPs supporting leveling up – those affiliated with blue-collar conservatism, Onward’s Leveling Up task force and the Northern Research Group – made up 45% of Jenrick’s base. Although they only made up 36% of Badenoch’s support base, it actually gained a greater number of MPs from this group (ten versus nine).

So, all in all, some interesting themes emerge. Firstly, Badenoch was the favorite of the established MPs compared to Jenrick who gained the support of the new MPs. This is a good position for the new leader, as the new MPs will be more eager to rise through the ranks of the opposition and will therefore be more likely to show loyalty to the new leader rather than rebel. Having experienced MPs will help provide stability to your shadow cabinet.

Second, even though the entire race was framed as a battle between the party’s right and center, MPs affiliated with the one-nation wing were evenly distributed between the final two candidates. They did not choose to abstain, which would have sent a powerful message to whoever became the future leader.

Even in the fourth round, when a centrist candidate – Cleverly – was available, one nation’s MPs who publicly declared themselves in favor of a candidate accounted for half of Badenoch’s support, 39% of Jenrick’s support and only 33%. Cleverly’s. This suggests that a nation’s cohort within the party is more eclectic than perhaps presented in the comments. And we can be reasonably sure that they were not part of the failed tactical vote because they publicly stated their position.

So while Badenoch is in a relatively strong position, there are certain groups to which it may wish to offer an olive branch in the interest of party unity. They include new MPs, cultural conservatives, China hawks and those who backed Johnson in 2022.