Evan McMullin’s improbable third-party presidential campaign received a boost Wednesday with the release of a new poll of McMullin’s home state, Utah, showing him just four points behind Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It was amazing enough that pollsters from the Salt Lake City-based firm Y2 Analytics found the Republican and Democratic candidates tied at 26 percent in one of the nation’s reddest states. But it was downright astonishing that an unknown like McMullin could be hot on their heels with 22 percent.

The day before the results were announced, I sat down with McMullin, a 40-year old ex-CIA operative, and his running mate, Mindy Finn, a 35-year old Republican politico and founder of a group called Empowered Women, in a temporary office not far from the Capitol. We talked some political strategy — just how, precisely, does he plan to win 270 electoral votes? — but more of the conversation was devoted to the Republican Party’s policies and its appeal, or lack of appeal, to minority and millennial voters.