Evan McMullin presidential campaign, 2016
| Evan McMullin for President | |
|---|---|
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| Campaign | U.S. presidential election, 2016 |
| Candidate |
Evan McMullin Former chief policy director for the House Republican Conference Mindy Finn Businesswoman, political consultant |
| Affiliation | Independent |
| Status |
Announced: August 8, 2016 Lost election: November 8, 2016 |
| Headquarters | 770 E South Temple Salt Lake City, Utah 84102 |
| Receipts | US$1,032,757 (as of 10/19/16) |
| Website | |
| www |
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Announced: August 8, 2016
The 2016 presidential campaign of Evan McMullin was announced on August 8, 2016. Evan McMullin, the former chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and a former CIA operations officer, ran as an independent candidate.
The controversial candidacy of Donald Trump for the Republican Party nomination caused the creation of the Stop Trump movement, which sought to stop his nomination or find a candidate to oppose him. After months of unsuccessful searching, Evan McMullin decided to run as a conservative alternative candidate based on Trump's divisive comments on a variety of issues, calling him a potential threat to the Republic.
McMullin announced his presidential candidacy in a letter on his website on August 8, 2016, calling himself a conservative alternative to Republican nominee Donald Trump.
On October 6, McMullin announced that Mindy Finn would be his running mate. Finn did not appear on most ballots with McMullin; instead, paper candidate Nathan Johnson of San Diego, California was listed as his running mate. McMullin had not chosen a running mate at the time he filed for ballot access in most states and used Johnson, a personal friend of his, as a name on the ballot.
Following the release of crude recordings by Donald Trump on October 7, McMullin surged in the polls in Utah—tying statistically with Trump and Hillary Clinton at 22%, 26%, and 26%, respectively, with Libertarian Gary Johnson also performing strongly at 14%. Further strong polling in Utah, in some cases showing McMullin at or near the lead, led to FiveThirtyEight calling him the "third-most likely person to be the next president of the United States" as of October 13. An Emerson College poll later that month showed McMullin leading Utah by four points, with 31% of the vote, Trump at 27%, and Clinton at 24%. McMullin's popularity in Utah - and Trump's unpopularity - appears owing to an unusual shift of Mormons away from the Republican candidate. If McMullin had succeeded in winning Utah or any other state, it would have marked the first time since the 1968 presidential campaign of George Wallace that a candidate not nominated by the Democratic or Republican parties had won a state and claimed its electoral votes.
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