But this year Mr. Sunak — a multimillionaire whom opponents have painted as failing to understand the needs of ordinary people — was facing historic headwinds after 14 years of Conservative leadership. The party presided over a tumultuous exit from the European Union and Britain has wrestled with a cost of living crisis for years, with inflation reaching 11.1 percent in 2022 and only recently returning to target levels.
Opinion polls indicated that voters were also frustrated by the government’s mismanagement of the coronavirus pandemic, worried about their health-care system and exasperated by the leadership of Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, who lasted only 45 days in office.
In Richmond, some felt that Mr. Sunak was being blamed for problems that started before his tenure and go much deeper than any one prime minister could handle.
“Most people here like Rishi Sunak,” said Barbara Richmond, 70, who has a holiday home nearby, though she does not vote in Richmond.
“For most Yorkshire people, it’s family first,” she said. “And he’s a family man.”
But many were fed up with scandals that have plagued the Conservative Party. There was “Partygate,” in which Boris Johnson and his staff at Downing Street broke the government’s own lockdown rules during the pandemic, helping trigger Mr. Johnson’s downfall. There was the economic chaos unleashed by Ms. Truss’s ill-advised tax cut plan. And in recent weeks, Conservative staff members were alleged to have made bets about the timing of the snap election.
