Evan McMullin filed his declaration of candidacy on Friday, certifying his bid to take on incumbent Sen. Mike Lee with an anti-Trump message in November.
McMullin, a onetime Republican who ran as an independent candidate in the 2016 presidential election as an outspoken Trump critic, said he hopes to rid Utah of “a poster child for the politics of division and extremism.”
“Increasingly, our values are under threat by political extremes and self-serving politicians. … Sen. Lee has lost his way in Washington and become a poster child for the politics of division and extremism,” McMullin said in a statement obtained by the Washington Examiner. “He prefers to engage in attention-seeking obstructionism than in constructive service. It’s time to call him home. Utah needs better representation in Washington and Washington needs Utah’s leadership more than ever.”
EVAN MCMULLIN ANNOUNCES INDEPENDENT SENATE CAMPAIGN AGAINST UTAH’S MIKE LEE
The former undercover CIA officer announced he would challenge Lee in October, releasing a candidacy video vowing to represent Utah residents better than “the extremes in Washington.”
The race is not expected to be competitive for Lee, as Utah is a reliably red state. However, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem are expected to stump for Lee this weekend in an effort to ramp up fundraising for the incumbent’s shot at a third term in the Senate.
McMullin outraised Lee in the last three months of 2021, raking in $1,032,983 in donations as compared to Lee’s roughly $520,000, according to the Associated Press.
“These numbers show Sen. Lee isn’t growing much of a lead, particularly for a 12-year incumbent who has been raising money for this race since 2016,” Kelsey Witt, the communications director for McMullin’s campaign, told the Washington Examiner. “We’ve been on the scene for just a few months and netted three times what he did last quarter.”
However, the incumbent had more cash on hand at the end of 2021, with a total of $2.16 million in campaign reserves to McMullin’s $702,745, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
McMullin has also gained support within the state as several Utah Democrats are throwing their support behind the independent candidate, likely a strategic move given the state’s heavy tilt toward the GOP. A group of Democrats, led by former Utah Democratic Rep. Ben McAdams, have vowed to clear the field to give McMullin a better shot at ousting Lee.
Only two Democratic candidates have filed to run against Lee in the Senate race, including Kael Weston, who previously ran unsuccessfully against Utah Rep. Chris Stewart in 2020.
Lee has the majority support of Utah Republicans, carrying 51% of support among the state’s GOP, according to a February poll by OH Predictive Insights, a market research firm.
But McMullin is siphoning off support from a sizable cross-section of Utah voters, making him a threat to the incumbent, some experts say.
“Keep an eye out for anomaly Evan McMullin in this race — he’s definitely gaining attention with nearly a quarter of Utah’s electorate currently in his camp,” said Jacob Joss, an OHPI senior data analyst, in a statement.
In a hypothetical three-way race among Lee, McMullin, and Weston, Lee leads with 34% of the vote, McMullin is at 24%, and Weston trails with 12%, according to the survey.
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The poll, conducted between Feb. 7 and Feb. 14, surveyed 739 registered Utah voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
Lee was first elected in 2010. His brother, Thomas Rex Lee, was a candidate to fill a Supreme Court vacancy under the Trump administration.
