Badenoch ramps up media appearances amid ‘low Tory leadership voter turnout’

Three days to go before voting closes, with new Conservative leader set to be announced on Saturday

Kemi Badenoch said she is ramping up her media appearances in the final week of the Tory leadership contest because “people aren’t turning out to vote”.
The former Cabinet minister, considered to be the favourite to replace Rishi Sunak, said she was doing more interviews “specifically” because the turnout is lower than expected.
There are three days to go before voting closes, with the new party leader to be announced on Saturday.
Mrs Badenoch, who has had several high-profile clashes with journalists in the past, has generally been seen as more hesitant to engage with the media than her rival, Robert Jenrick.
Earlier this month, she took part in a hustings on GB News at which the candidates took turns to field questions from the studio audience. But she declined to participate in a subsequent BBC Question Time special, where she would have faced Mr Jenrick directly, after the Conservative Party refused to endorse the event.
ITV offered the two rivals the chance to debate their leadership bids on the Peston show, but Mr Jenrick, the former immigration minister, ended up going on alone after the broadcaster was spurned by the Badenoch camp.
Similar invitations were also made by Sky News and The Sun, but both proposals were mired in a bureaucratic to-ing and fro-ing that scuppered the plans.
In a notable escalation of her media campaign, Mrs Badenoch took part in a series of interviews with broadcasters on Monday and Tuesday.
Speaking to the BBC, she said she had made the conscious decision to increase her engagement because the turnout in the leadership contest had been lower than anticipated.
“I’m doing more media this week specifically because people aren’t turning out to vote as much as we would have expected,” she said.
She said this had been borne out in her own conversations with Conservative members, with some telling her they were “going to wait till the last minute” when she asked whether they had cast their ballots yet.
Mrs Badenoch insisted that she was not “worried” that she did not have enough support, pointing out that “the bookies have me ahead”. But she said added that she would still consider the contest “neck-and-neck”, arguing that “either of us could win”.
It comes after moderate Conservatives threatened to throw their ballots away in protest over James Cleverly’s shock elimination from the race.
One supporter of the shadow home secretary said a dozen members had told him they were putting their voting slips “in the bin” after their choice for leader was knocked out earlier this month.
Mr Cleverly was considered the most centrist candidate, while both Mr Jenrick and Mrs Badenoch are seen as being on the Right of the party.
Furious Tories blamed his surprise exit on MPs “freelancing” in misguided tactical voting, while others pointed the finger at Grant Shapps, Mr Cleverly’s campaign manager, who was known to track supporters on a spreadsheet.
The Tory Reform Group, which represents those on the centrist “One Nation” wing of the party, also refused to endorse either of the final two leadership hopefuls, claiming they had both used rhetoric that was “far and away from the party at its best”.