Kemi Badenoch says Conservatives are on a path to power, but polls show a steep climb

Kemi Badenoch told the Conservative Party’s conference in Birmingham on 7 October that it was on a path back to power. Senior Conservatives are discussing an outright win at the next UK general election, two years after losing government. Recent polling shows some improvement in how voters see Badenoch and their willingness to consider the party, but the Conservatives remain behind Labour and Reform in a current voting-intention survey.

Badenoch called the Conservatives the ‘no-drama’ and ‘no-nonsense’ party, according to the Associated Press. Her claim about a return to power is a political ambition, not a polling forecast. The distinction matters because the measures showing greater openness to the Conservatives do not show that those voters currently intend to support them.

Why Conservatives are discussing an outright win

BBC political reporter Brian Wheeler reported on 6 October that senior party figures, including Badenoch, were talking about forming a government after the next election. Deputy leader Alex Burghart said the Conservatives were preparing for an election and was convinced they could win outright. Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said an election would ideally come much later.

The party’s relationship with Reform UK is part of that calculation. Badenoch rejected both uniting with Reform and an electoral pact, AP reported. The BBC said she had also ruled out governing with Reform in a hung parliament and told the broadcaster she would prefer another election to a deal. Those positions make the Conservatives’ own electoral support especially important to the party’s stated route to power.

What polls show about Conservative support

YouGov’s analysis published ahead of the conference found that 28% of Britons were willing to consider voting Conservative in September, six points more than a year earlier. That was the highest reading in its tracker since Badenoch became leader in November 2024. Yet the party averaged 14% as respondents’ main voting intention in YouGov’s September polls, only two points above its low between June and September 2025.

The gap between considering a party and intending to vote for it limits what the first figure can tell us. YouGov also found that 20% of Britons thought the Conservatives were ready to return to government, while 59% thought they were not. Its election model suggested the party might roughly match its 2024 result if an election were held immediately, rather than fall to fourth place as it had projected the previous autumn. That is a model estimate, not a result or a prediction of when an election will take place.

A separate Opinium poll, conducted online from 30 September to 2 October among 2,050 UK adults, put Labour on 30%, Reform on 25% and the Conservatives on 17%. It recorded Badenoch’s net approval at minus one and Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s at plus eight. Opinium also said Burnham led Badenoch by 21 points when respondents were asked who would make the best prime minister.

Ipsos offered another measure of the challenge. In its September survey, 44% preferred a government led by Burnham to one led by Badenoch, chosen by 30%. In a separate hypothetical choice, 45% preferred a Badenoch-led Conservative government to a Nigel Farage-led Reform government, chosen by 23%. These head-to-head questions ask about different alternatives; neither is a voting-intention result.

What remains uncertain about the election

Ipsos found that 5% expected the Conservatives to form a majority at the next general election and another 3% expected them to be the largest party in a hung parliament. Nearly a quarter, 23%, said they did not know what result was most likely. The survey was conducted online among 2,284 British adults from 18 to 23 September, and Ipsos cautioned that polls are subject to potential sources of error.

The Conservatives won 121 of the House of Commons’ 650 seats in the 2024 general election, according to AP. Badenoch’s conference speech included proposals to cut welfare spending, loosen regulation and cut taxes. Those are pledges rather than policies already in force. The available polling does not establish whether her improved personal standing will raise Conservative voting intention, or whether the party will win the next election.