Draper, Utah
Evan McMullin isn’t trying to fool anyone. Inside a gymnasium just outside of Salt Lake City, nearly 1,000 people hoping for something better than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton have gathered to hear the 40-year-old former CIA agent and independent conservative presidential candidate who is surging in Utah polls. “Evan Help Us,” reads one sign. But McMullin isn’t there to offer false hope.
“The truth is that Hillary Clinton is now dominating Donald Trump in the polls so terribly—he’s competing so terribly with her—that the chances are we’re going to get more of the same in Washington. I know you don’t want to hear that,” he says. “Donald Trump is only leading in Texas by three percentage points. Texas. I think he’s tied in Georgia or he’s losing there. This is the Republican nominee.”
“If we had a Republican nominee this year who stood for” conservative principles and inalienable human rights, “we’d be winning,” says McMullin. “But we don’t have that now.”
McMullin mentions, almost in passing, that he has “a chance” of blocking both Clinton and Trump, in the unlikely event that the race tightens and McMullin wins a state or two. As Benjamin Morris wrote at FiveThirtyEight in mid-October, McMullin’s chances of becoming president “are slim, not none.” The numbers-crunching website gives Trump about a 1-in-50 chance of winning 269 to 275 electoral votes. If in such a scenario McMullin were to take Utah’s six electoral votes from Trump—Utah polls show them neck-and-neck—no candidate would have the 270 electoral votes needed to become president and the House of Representatives would decide the race.
In deadlocked presidential elections, the Constitution directs the House to choose among the top three electoral vote getters; each state delegation gets one vote, and a majority of states is necessary to elect a new president. What are the odds, in this already very unlikely scenario, the GOP-controlled House wouldn’t just make Trump president? Not good. But I’ll let you do the math.
Utah is on the verge of being the first state in a half-century to vote for an independent presidential candidate because it may be the last state in the union where character is still king. All the voters I meet at the McMullin rally are Mormons who say they can’t cast a ballot for Trump because of his lack of decency and morals but can’t check the box for someone as corrupt and dishonest as Hillary Clinton.
“John Adams said, ‘This constitution is made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other,’ ” Utah state senator Howard Stephenson says when he takes the stage to introduce McMullin, a Mormon who graduated from Utah’s Brigham Young University. “And yet we have arrived at that point in our nation’s history when the nation as a whole is no longer moral and religious, and as a result we have the top of the Democrats’ and Republican party ballots presidential candidates who are not moral and religious. It’s something that should make us all pause.”
Debbie Emett, a school psychologist who drove nine hours from Montana, where McMullin is only a write-in candidate, tells me she can’t vote for Trump because he’s “an absolute narcissistic bully. A third-grader. I work with those kids.”
When asked why she doesn’t think she needs to choose between the lesser-of-two-evils, she replies: “Evil is evil, but I respect your right to vote for whoever you want to. Please respect my right. I can’t do that. . . . I think God’s going to take care of us no matter who it is. But there’s hope here.”
The audience gathered at McMullin’s Friday night rally is indeed hopeful and teeming with new life. It’s the first time I’ve had difficulty hearing a recording of a candidate’s speech because there are so many babies babbling and crying in the background.
McMullin doesn’t speak explicitly in terms of morality, but he stresses his belief in fundamental conservative principles and the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What was once boilerplate for a Republican candidate is a jarring break from the rhetoric of the 2016 GOP presidential nominee. These remarks are met with loud cheers from the crowd, but the loudest cheers of all come when McMullin calls for “a new conservative movement.” McMullin says a new movement would stand for liberty, fiscal restraint, federalism, and an open and fair economy that won’t “only serve the interests of large corporations.”
“A new conservative movement will be open to people of all faiths and all races,” McMullin adds. He pauses and is greeted by a full second or two of silence before a smattering of applause and cheers breaks out. “That was supposed to be a dramatic pause,” the rookie candidate explains with a smile, drawing loud laughter from the whole crowd. “You still nailed it. You were good.”
The following morning, I meet with McMullin, his running mate Mindy Finn, and top aide Rick Wilson in the lobby of a Salt Lake City hotel to find out how exactly this new conservative movement would differ from the conservative movement that existed before Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015.
“It would be different because it would re-embrace the truth that all men and women are created equal and the cause of individual liberty,” McMullin replies. In other words, it sounds a lot like a return to the conserv-ative movement of 2015 and a break from the Republican nominee of 2016.
McMullin and Finn both openly discuss the possibility of starting a new party if the GOP continues to be dominated by Trumpism after the election. “The real question is what’s going to be the best vehicle for conservative principles,” says Finn. “It’s clear to us right now that the Republican party is failing to be the body to represent conservative principles. If it continues to fail to be that body, then, yeah, I think that it would be necessary to have a new political party.”
But how will they determine whether the Republican party remains in the grip of Trumpism in 2017? What are the policy differences between, say, Trumpism and Cruzism? “I think it’s an affect difference in large degree,” McMullin adviser Rick Wilson replies. “And that affect is a big thing in politics.”
“Ted Cruz has now aligned himself with Donald Trump, and I don’t think you can really separate the two,” Finn adds of the Texas senator and Tea Party favorite.
McMullin has been sharply critical of GOP leaders for falling in line behind Trump and thinks his own candidacy might help to keep a check on a likely Clinton presidency. “I think we’re helping on the down-ballot situation,” McMullin says. “People come to Mindy and [me] and say, ‘I wasn’t going to vote, and now I am.’ ” McMullin is named on the ballot in just 11 states but will likely be an official write-in candidate in 32 more.
There’s been some speculation that McMullin’s presidential bid might set him up for a congressional bid in his home state of Utah. Asked if running for the House or Senate is something he’d consider in the future, McMullin answers: “Yes, but we’re really focused on the movement now. I wasn’t intending to run for office now. I thought that I might someday, in like 10 or 15 years. Somebody as a part of this movement will need to run for office. I’m not convinced it needs to be me.”
“I’m more interested in building the movement. I think that’s more interesting. That’s what’s needed right now,” McMullin continues. “What’s required now is getting the message out about what true conservatism is and then building a population of support behind it, not just here in Utah or the Mountain West but across the country.”
For now, of course, he has a presidential race to mind. Twice during our interview voters interrupt to introduce themselves to McMullin and tell him that they’re voting for him. McMullin explains to one couple, Tim and Roxanne from Lehigh, Utah, that Hillary Clinton is likely to win but he has a chance of blocking both candidates if he wins Utah. Tim listens patiently and then replies: “We want the ‘Hail Mary’ to work.”
John McCormack is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
