The race to be the next leader of the Conservative Party currently has three members in the running, and new poll within the party has shown that Boris Johnson is the favourite choice among Tory members for who could replace Prime Minister Theresa May as the head of the party. The Foreign Secretary has the most backing of any candidate from the Tory members, with 23% of the party behind him.

Following closely behind Johnson are two other candidates whose popular backing threaten his prospects of leading the Conservative Party. For starters, there’s Ruth Davidson, who leads the party in Scotland and has proven very popular.

She’s close behind Johnson in the poll in second place with 19% of the Tory party behind her. And then there’s Jacob Rees-Mogg, whose controversial views on abortion and same-sex marriage could stop him from clinching the leadership, who has a backing of 17% in the recent poll. 17% and 19% are far behind Johnson’s 23% in relative terms. On the other hand, they’re miles ahead of the 11% of the poll’s votes that Brexit Secretary David Davis received.

This is being viewed by political pundits as a sign that Davis’ popularity is waning as a lot of Conservatives (and, of course, members of other parties) are unhappy with the way that Davis is handling the negotiation process for the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, whose 2019 launch date is fast approaching.

Davis has done very little since we voted in last year’s referendum, and what he has done has been poorly received by the EU and some of the UK. So, anyway, it’s looking like Johnson is a shoe-in. It certainly won’t be David Davis.

David Davis was the favourite for leader back in June following general election

After the impromptu general election, way back on 8 June (which seems like years and years ago, but it was really only a couple of months ago), which Theresa May herself had called for with the intention of getting more of a majority in Parliament for her party and ended up losing the majority altogether, David Davis was touted as the top choice to replace her as the leader of the Conservative Party.

May had embarrassed herself greatly and no one can really recover from something like that, so she wasn’t expected to last much longer as the Conservative Party’s leader. But then she paid a visit to the Queen and asked if she could stay on as Prime Minister and the Queen told her that she could, so the point became moot. But before that, pundits were guessing who would replace her and the Conservatives were polling to decide who they wanted to lead the party, and back then, David Davis was the favourite choice.

But a lot can happen in three months, and the favour for Davis seems to have dipped greatly, while Boris Johnson’s calm and considered speeches have won him the love of the party. Johnson’s 23% massively trumps the 6% of the poll that Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, received. She had been widely regarding as being groomed to be the next leader of the Conservative Party, but all that speculation has now gone quickly out the window.

Johnson’s Telegraph article considered to have clinched the top spot on the poll

YouGov conducted the poll for The Times, to see who was the favourite for the Conservative Party leader position, and it suggests that what clinched the top spot for Boris Johnson was his bold move to intervene in the Brexit process by jumping in with a 4,000-word article for The Telegraph.

It’s a tried and tested tradition: make your voice heard and you’ll get ahead in politics. However, it wasn’t quite a landslide victory, proving this is still a three-horse race between Johnson and his close rivals in Davidson and Rees-Mogg.