Jeremy Hunt is poised to unveil a string of new backers as he vies with Michael Gove for a place alongside Boris Johnson on the ballot paper in the race to become Britain’s next prime minister.
As Tory MPs prepare to begin voting next week, after Theresa May formally resigned as leader on Friday, Johnson is the clear frontrunner, having scooped up more than 40 Tory MPs.
Three cabinet ministers – Hunt, Gove and the home secretary, Sajid Javid– are the favourites to make it on to the ballot paper.
Tory members will eventually choose between two candidates after MPs narrow down the field, which is currently 11 strong, in a series of votes beginning next Thursday.
“I think this weekend will determine whether it becomes a three-way race, or a two-way race, for that second spot,” said one senior party source.
Hunt and Gove are neck-and-neck, with the support of around 30 MPs, and both men won new high-profile endorsements on Friday.
The well-respected former Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt threw his weight behind Hunt, saying his performance as foreign secretary “gives me confidence for our country’s success”.
Oliver Letwin, who was central in organising MPs to seek a Brexit compromise, announced his support for Gove, saying his leadership would give the UK “the highest chance of exiting the EU with a sensible deal”.
Backers of Hunt say he has more supporters who will make themselves known in the coming days, with some senior Tories suggesting he could have as many as 30 more votes up his sleeve.
MPs said Hunt was well received at this week’s hustings for MPs who are members of Amber Rudd and Nicky Morgan’s One Nation Group. “Everybody in the room was very taken with Jeremy Hunt,” said one person present from a rival campaign.
The foreign secretary put himself on first-name terms with Donald Trump this week, after meeting the US president off the plane at Stansted airport and joining talks in Downing Street alongside the prime minister.
At a hustings this week, Hunt praised the outspoken president’s communication skills, saying: “The Trump base has remained solid because he arrives at work knowing what the world is thinking and the world knows what he is thinking. He focuses on communicating to his voters.”
Steve Brine, the former health minister who resigned to help block a no-deal Brexit and is a key figure in Hunt’s campaign, said: “We are not interested in defining ourselves against anybody. We think we’ve got a candidate who is match fit, ready to do the job, trusted on the world stage – who proves that by just being Jeremy and doing the job that he is paid to do.”
Javid, meanwhile, has struggled to make headway, after what even allies concede was a halting start to his campaign. His pitch to MPs is that he will be able to build a broader electoral coalition than Johnson.
At an event on Thursday, Javid said: “I do think there’s a decision we face as Conservatives: what kind of party do we want to be? Do we want to be a party that appeals broadly, to the whole country, a one-nation party that tries to bring people together, or do we want to go down the route of division? For me, it has to be the former.”
Morgan has already endorsed Gove, who made a pitch to be the moderate face of Brexit this week, by saying he would be prepared to delay leaving the EU beyond the 31 October deadline, if it allowed a deal to be done.
But Rudd has not yet supported a leadership candidate, despite early speculation that she could ally herself with Johnson, a pairing quickly dubbed “Bamber”. Talks between the pair about a potential endorsement “broke up acrimoniously”, according to a Rudd ally.
The defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt, had been expected to run, but has not yet declared, and other candidates are sceptical that she could gather the eight names now necessary after the 1922 Committee raised the threshold for participation on Tuesday. If she declines to stand, her support will be eagerly coveted.
The backing of the Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, while she is not an MP, is also being eagerly sought. Johnson was discouraged from attending the recent Scottish Tory conference in Aberdeen at which Javid and Gove both spoke.
All the leading contenders have been holding face-to-face meetings and phone calls with MPs they hope to win over, including those who have come out for another candidate in the first round.
Matt Hancock, Andrea Leadsom and Dominic Raab all appear unlikely to progress to the final two, although Tory party leadership races are notoriously unpredictable.
Meanwhile, the development secretary, Rory Stewart, is continuing his #RoryWalks campaign of perambulating around the UK chatting to voters and broadcasting it on Twitter. However, the strategy appears to have been more popular outside Westminster than among the MPs who actually have a vote.
