Rishi Sunak is now polling below Liz Truss among voters that last put the Conservative Party in power, according to a major study into the prime minister’s popularity.
A new JL Partners poll for Conservative Home shows the PM has an approval rating of -25.4 as he battles to keep the Tory ship afloat.
Sunak’s pledge to bring net migration down was dealt a major blow last month after figures showed it hit a record high this year.
The government’s flagship Rwanda policy has also suffered a significant setback after the Supreme Court ruled that it was illegal.
According to new polling seen by Bloomberg, just 59 per cent of voters who backed the Conservatives in 2019 under Boris Johnson are sticking with the party under Sunak.
That was down from 74 per cent last August and 63 per cent following Liz Truss’s disastrous “mini-budget” in September 2022.
The polling found that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is doing the most damage to Mr Sunak’s party, with one in six 2019 Tory voters switching to the right-wing party.
It will set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street, and comes as the Conservative Home survey revealed Mr Sunak’s plummeting support among Tory members.
Related: Govt considering creating a ‘state-within-a-state’ in Rwanda to get around Supreme Court ruling