SALT LAKE CITY — Donald Trump’s loyal base isn’t the only group of disaffected voters the Republican Party needs to worry about.
Less than two weeks before Election Day, independent conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullin is packing town hall meetings in Utah with rank-and-file Republicans that for decades could be counted on to support their party’s nominee.
They know McMullin’s chances of winning the White House are nil. But they don’t care. They’re repelled by Trump’s brand of politics and disappointed in the Republican Party for nominating him, and vouching for him through myriad controversies.
So when McMullin tells Republicans here that it’s time to break with the GOP and start a new conservative movement — one that hews to the party’s ideological roots and is more welcoming to women and minorities, he gets their attention, and enthusiastic applause.
“I want to be part of that movement. I’m a constitutional conservative,” Ken Mallett, 67, said Thursday evening as he exited a McMullin campaign event in suburban Salt Lake City.
“I don’t think that Mr. Trump stands for what the Republican Party has meant to me over the years. He’s made a mockery of my values,” Mallet added. “If he stands for the Republican Party then I don’t want to be a Republican anymore.”
Sarah Bigler, 39, was prepared to hold her nose and vote for Trump.
She was concerned about the Supreme Court and worried that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would appoint liberal justices to fill the current vacancy and others that occur over the next few years.
But Bigler has decided that the high court, as important an issue as it is, is not a reason to hand the Republican Party over to Trump.
McMullin is narrowly trailing Trump in Utah according to recent polls, with Clinton a close third. Bigler hopes that a McMullin victory there might send a message that conservatives aren’t on board with the direction he’s leading the party.
“When Trump got nominated, and as he’s unfolded and we saw this ugly monster emerge and you see his ugly followers, and you’re like, I’m embarrassed,” Bigler said. “Is that my party? That’s not me — that’s not even anyone that I know.”
The Republican Party faces a dilemma with no easy answers, and it threatens to split the GOP in half regardless of whether Trump wins or loses or Nov. 8. Clinton appeared headed for victory, but that was before Friday’s bombshell that the FBI was taking another look at her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.
On one side are the blue-collar voters and others energized by Trump and his combative, nationalist populism.
This group rejects many of the domestic and foreign policies that have defined the party at least since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, among them free-trade, a reduction of the size and scope of government and robust U.S. leadership abroad.
On the other side are traditional conservatives suspicious of the racial overtones in Trump’s appeal and have voted Republican because of the party’s support for overhauling programs like Medicare and Social Security, adherence to free-market economics and U.S. internationalism.
Republican insiders have mostly been obsessed with figuring out how to holding onto the Trump faction of the party in future elections. In the midst of that, they might be missing warning signs that the less vocal faction of traditional, Reaganite Republicans could bolt the party if it transforms in Trump’s image.
That’s what more than a dozen Utah Republicans who showed up to see McMullin during a two-day campaign swing through Salt Lake City told the Washington Examiner in interviews.
It was evident in their positive reaction to McMullin, who’s pitch on key issues sounded like a throwback to Republican presidential candidates of the past. For instance, the former CIA operative, 40, advocated passionately that the U.S. should accept Syrian refugees, as long as they are rigorously vetted.
Most pragmatic Republicans would dare voice that opinion for fear of reprisal from their party’s base at the ballot box. But on Thursday evening in Bountiful, in suburban Salt Lake City, a town hall meeting crowd of about 200 erupted in applause.
“I think we should take refugees, and I think we should carefully vet them,” McMullin said. “Our country has been tremendously blessed for looking out for some of the world’s most vulnerable people throughout history.”
Trump has had trouble coalescing Republicans across the country.
But has been a special case. The dominance of the Mormon Church here is especially influential on the culture. So even though Utah among the most conservative and reliably Republican states in the country, many voters have rejected Trump.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has historical experience with religious persecution, and so Trump’s proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the U.S. doesn’t sit well with them. Utahans are uncomfortable with Trump’s hardline immigration policies for similar reasons.
That McMullin is Mormon has no doubt helped him connect with Republican voters in Utah. In the latest RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, Trump’s support stood at just 31 percent, with McMullin and Clinton tied at 25.2 percent.
Still, Utah is not the only example of how Trump is fraying the Republican coalition.
Polls show that Trump is on track to become the first Republican presidential nominee in modern times to garner fewer votes from college-educated white voters than the Democratic nominee. If this holds, and persists in the future, the GOP has more problems than figuring out how to keep Trump voters in the fold.
Barbara “Cookie” Allred, 68, a retired elementary school teacher, said she has always voted Republican, and would have this year if Trump was not the nominee. Instead, she’s voting for Clinton and has gone so far as to volunteer for her Utah campaign.
“Every time [Trump] opens his mouth he insults me,” Allred said.
