Tory Leadership Election - Round 2

By 5:30pm this evening the Tories may have elected a new leader. But for that to happen it would require Davis or Fox (whoever finishes second) to pull out before the membership vote which would hand the victory to Cameron. I can see Davis withdrawing (as he did four years ago) if he suffers badly enough in today's ballot. But then again if he suffers too badly he will be in third place and out of the running anyway. If Fox improves on his impressive first round result and makes it into second place he will be less likely to withdraw early. Cameron has won the second ballot before it even takes place. He could end up with more than half of the available votes. His support will be greatly increased by the vast majority of the 38 former-Clarke supporters and further increased by Davis supporters who have lost all hope of their candidate winning and thus move their support to him. I doubt Cameron will take too many votes from Fox though. Fox has a realistc chance of finishing second this afternoon by taking a significant amount of votes from Davis. It certainly won't be too surprising if whoever finishes second does withdraw though, because as it currently stands, they would have no chance in the membership vote, unless something was to come along and knock a wheel or three off the Cameron campaign wagon in the coming weeks.

The Telegraph this morning published the results of a YouGov poll of party members which shows that Cameron is effectively unbeatable.

Cameron 59%
Fox 18%
Davis 15%

I was pretty close in predicting the votes in the first round. Lets how close i can get with this one. This round is harder to forecast as the potential for tactical voting is much greater. There's also the likelihood that many previous supporters of Davis and Fox may decide to vote for Cameron simply to increase the chance of it hastening the end of the election because they know he has all but won it. That's what i think will happen to some extent. If the election does end six weeks early, those who don't support Cameron won't be too amused, but i can't see Cameron supporters minding too much.

My prediction for the second round of voting.
Cameron: 108
Davis: 45
Fox: 45

After winning the 1st round prediction competition on PoliticalBetting.com I put in my 2nd round prediction yesterday which is a bit different to the one above (DC:96 - DD:51 - LF:51)


Result Update: The 198 votes were shared as follows...
Cameron: 90
Davis: 57
Fox: 51

I sense some tactical voting was involved to save Davis from third place.