McKay Coppins at BuzzFeed reports that independent conservative presidential candidate Evan McMullin will announce his running mate is 35-year-old Republican consultant Mindy Finn. Here’s Coppins:
McMullin teased the announcement on Twitter Thursday, saying, “I can’t wait to announce my running mate. You’re really going to like her!” A source with knowledge of the pick said Finn would join the ticket soon. A source close to the campaign confirmed the choice on Thursday. Finn has advised multiple campaigns, as well as the Republican National Committee. She also spent time developing business partnerships for Twitter, and currently serves as president of Empowered Women, a conservative advocacy group she founded. According to her Linkedin page, “She is battle-tested with fifteen years of experience working with America’s most well-known brands including President George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Google and Twitter.” Though Finn is a virtual unknown outside the Beltway, she has been an outspoken member of the D.C.-centric #NeverTrump movement. She has gone on CNNcomparing her party’s nominee to an “abusive boyfriend,” and warned of his “menacing character” in an essay.
Read more about McMullin—a former CIA agent whose independent candidacy is an attempt to offer a conservative alternative to Donald Trump—in a recent profile in THE WEEKLY STANDARD by Jonathan Last. Here’s an excerpt:
“We need to start voting for leaders whom we actually want to see in office,” Evan McMullin says as we sit together in a small conference room. “Or we will never get them.” McMullin is running the longest of long-shot campaigns. He announced an independent bid for the presidency just seven weeks ago. He’s on the ballot in only 11 states, though he’s got ballot access as a write-in candidate in 16 others and expects to be ballot-eligible in 40 states by Election Day. He is unlikely to have the financial resources to run even a single TV ad. What McMullin has going for him is this: He’s smart. He has expertise in counterterrorism. His foreign-policy worldview is much closer to the mainstream than anyone else running this cycle. He is genuinely conservative. And he is—this cannot be emphasized enough—a normal human being.
