Robert Jenrick is closing the gap with Kemi Badenoch in the Conservative leadership race, a poll of Tory members shows.
The former immigration minister is up seven points to 25 per cent, according to ConservativeHome.
Shadow housing secretary Ms Badenoch remains in the lead at 36 per cent, up two points, in the bellwether survey.
Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly, the two centrist candidates, are both on 13 per cent.
A further 13 per cent of respondents to the poll of 812 Tory members, carried out from September 26-7, said they did not know.
The results came on the first day of Tory conference in Birmingham in which four candidates will battle to be selected by MPs to reach the final two.
Party members will then choose between whichever candidates are selected, before a new leader of the party is chosen.
Mr Jenrick is expected to announce in a campaign rally today that he will give more power to Tory members and hold a review of where the Tories went wrong in the last election.
He will vow to end nepotism in the selection of new MPs by abolishing the centrally-approved candidates’ list and give the grassroots more power to choose future MPs.
If elected, he will pledge to give members more power to shape policy so that the party values their ideas ‘not just your wallets’, he will say.
An election review will be held with a ‘hard rain’ for those who have disrespected the membership, he will add.
‘This has gone on too long. The period of disrespect is over. The era of the party members has come,’ he is expected to say.