Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin is quietly polling well in Utah — well enough that he might win the state come Nov. 8. An Emerson College poll published last week showed McMullin polling at 34 percent, good for first place in the state.

If he wins Utah, it leaves open the possibility that neither Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton nor Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would reach the 270 Electoral College votes necessary to win the presidency, leaving it up to the United States House of Representatives to select the next president.

McMullin was formerly the chief policy director for the House Republican Conference in the House of Representatives and has served as an operations officer for the CIA. He announced his candidacy for presidency in early August.

The Daily Orange sat down with Kristi Andersen, a professor emerita of political science in Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, to learn more about McMullin’s relevance in the election and how he could influence the election.

The Daily Orange: Why is Evan McMullin relevant in the 2016 presidential race?

Kristi Andersen: For conservatives that don’t want to vote for Trump or Gary Johnson, McMullin has seemed like an appealing person. He’s young, he’s Mormon, he’s doing really well in Utah.

The argument I’ve read is that he is not a politician. Everybody hates politicians right now. So he could possibly be a new conservative leader. He’s somebody new.

The Republican party needs to remake itself. It needs a new face who hasn’t been involved in the division of the party.

The D.O.: Why is McMullin popular in Utah?

K.A.: It’s a Republican state and it has been Republican for a long time. Mormons typically are Republican. The Mormon Church and Mormons have been really repulsed by Donald Trump. Secondly, (Trump’s) anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim stuff. Mormon is a religious minority, so they don’t like it when he’s saying, “Let’s kick out all the Muslims.”

The D.O.: What is the significance of McMullin’s popularity in Utah?

K.A.: If it’s a win in Utah, and if then Hillary didn’t win a majority of the votes in the Electoral College, which is unlikely, maybe people would turn to McMullin as an alternative to either Trump or Clinton.

The D.O.: What are Evan McMullin’s chances of winning the election?

K.A.: It is extremely unlikely. Not to the point of being impossible, but for conservatives I think, more so than Gary Johnson.

The D.O.: What does the increasing support of McMullin mean for this election?

K.A.: In the end, I’m not sure it means much, but I think it represents how unhappy Republicans are with that choice (to nominate Trump).

Trump is so not what people think about Republicans and McMullin is. He seems in many ways to be an attractive candidate.

Published on October 24, 2016 at 10:17 pm

Contact: mpmoor02@syr.edu