Evan McMullin

David Evan McMullin (born April 2, 1976) is an American politician and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer. McMullin ran as an independent in the 2016 United States presidential election and in the 2022 United States Senate election in Utah. and polling taken late in the campaign showed him ahead of major party nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in his home state of Utah. McMullin received 21.5% of the vote in Utah, taking third place in the state behind Trump and Clinton. Nationally, he received 0.5% of the popular vote.

Following his defeat, McMullin emerged as a vocal critic of the Trump administration. He endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. He has been involved in early discussions about forming a new center-right political party, and organized the May 2021 release of the political manifesto "A Call for American Renewal" with Miles Taylor. In 2022, McMullin launched a campaign as an independent in the U.S. Senate election in Utah, receiving the endorsement of the Utah Democratic Party. He was defeated in the November 8 general election by incumbent Republican Mike Lee, losing by a margin of ten percent in the closest Senate election in Utah since 1976.

Early life and education McMullin was born on April 2, 1976 in Provo, Utah, the oldest of four children of David McMullin and Lanie Bullard. At a young age, his family moved to a rural area outside Seattle, Washington, where his father worked as a computer scientist and his mother sold bulk foods to neighbors from the family's garage. After graduating in 1994 from Auburn Senior High School, In 2001, McMullin graduated with a bachelor's degree in international law and diplomacy and began formal training with the CIA to become an operations officer. After working for the CIA, McMullin attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he received an MBA in 2011.

Career CIA intelligence officer Soon after McMullin joined the CIA, the September 11 attacks occurred, leading to an accelerated training and deployment. He spent the next decade working overseas on counterterrorism and intelligence operations as an operations officer with the National Clandestine Service, operating in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. His deployments included postings in an unspecified southwest Asian country that was key to the-ongoing war on terror.

While the details of his missions remain classified, former CIA officers who worked with McMullin praised his work, noting his talent for recruiting members of extremist organizations through building trust and willingness to engage in human intelligence outside the confines of the embassy. McMullin then worked for the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs In 2012, he volunteered for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, which indirectly led to him being recruited by Republicans on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs looking for an adviser with counter-terrorism experience. In 2013, McMullin was an International Advisory Board member for the Kennedy Center for International Studies at BYU.

In 2013, McMullin became a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for the 113th Congress. It was from this position that he watched the 2016 Republican primaries, and when he began to speak out against Trump he was urged by some Republicans to stay out of the fray.

Political activity 2016 presidential campaign

On August 8, 2016, McMullin announced that he would run as a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election as an independent. He had personally lobbied several Congresspeople to run under the Better for America banner, but when none would run and it was suggested to him that he should run himself, he decided to do so. and his presidential bid was also backed by several former members of Better for America, a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to getting nationwide ballot access for an independent candidate for president in the 2016 election. McMullin's campaign was supported by some members of the "Never Trump" movement.

McMullin's late entrance into the race caused him to miss several state ballot deadlines, and ultimately he was only able to appear on the ballot in eleven states, with write-in eligibility in many other states. As such he did not appear on enough ballots to win the necessary Electoral College majority of 270 electoral votes, so instead McMullin hoped to deny a majority of the electoral vote to either of the two major-party candidates. In such a scenario, under the terms of the Twelfth Amendment, the House of Representatives would select the new president from among the top-three electoral vote winners. On October 6, McMullin named Mindy Finn as his running mate. Finn had previously worked for Twitter and as a digital strategist for the RNC and the National Republican Senatorial Committee. McMullin's popularity in Utah – and Trump's unpopularity – appears owing to an unusual shift of Mormons away from the Republican candidate. Had McMullin won Utah, it would have been the first time since 1968 that a non-major-party candidate won a state.

Ultimately, McMullin's best performance came in Utah, his native state, He also took third in Idaho with 6.7%. Nationwide, McMullin received 734,737 votes (0.5%), (0.7%) in the states he was on the ballot. While running for president in 2016, McMullin's campaign amassed about $664,000 in debt to campaign vendors, mostly from legal fees. It is common for unsuccessful presidential campaigns to incur such debts, and McMullin said in 2022 that he was committed to paying down the debts.

After the 2016 campaign through 2021 After the 2016 campaign, McMullin remained strongly critical of Trump and Putin. The group, a nonpartisan organization, was formed as a watchdog group criticizing Trump administration on democracy issues. The group focuses on "defense of democratic (small 'd') norms, constitutionalism and civic involvement".

In 2020, McMullin endorsed Joe Biden over Trump in the 2020 presidential election, writing that "We now face a choice between the road to freedom and the road to tyranny. ... I'll put country over party in November." He announced his candidacy in the Deseret News, writing, "We do not need the extremists, the dividers, or the self-serving opportunists who haunt the halls of Congress today. We need selfless, servant leaders who unite rather than divide, seek solutions rather than attention, and who will consistently put the interests of Utahns and our country first. That's why I'm running to replace Sen. Mike Lee and to represent Utah, and our values, in the United States Senate." McMullin named "our unmooring from truth" as the greatest threat to America, specifically condemning conspiracism, misinformation, and divisiveness as threats to American democracy.

Two high-profile Utah Democratic officials, former Representative Ben McAdams and Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, endorsed McMullin by March 2022. In April 2022, both the Utah chapter of the American Solidarity Party and the Utah Democratic Party decided to endorse McMullin's independent candidacy for Senate, rather than field candidates of their own. McMullin pledged, if elected, to caucus with neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. Utah's other U.S. Senator, Mitt Romney, stayed neutral in the race. Lee was favored to win the race, as most (but not all) polls showed Lee with a single-digit lead over McMullin; the race was viewed as unusually competitive for Utah, which is typically a deeply Republican state. McMullin lost the election to Lee 53.2–42.8% but had the best performance by a non-Republican since 1976. Lee's vote share was down 15 points from his 68.2% six years prior.

Political positions McMullin has spoken out against partisanship and extremism in politics, stating that those extremes do not accurately represent Utah or the country as a whole, and has embraced being an independent. pointing to the economic benefits of international trade. as well as the estate tax. McMullin favors cuts to entitlement programs such as Social Security, and has proposed means-testing the program and raising the retirement age. McMullin also has said: "We should have done more to support the moderate Syrian opposition, and we still need to do that. They haven't received sufficient support or training, and we know how to do that very well."

McMullin told ABC News that he believed Donald Trump's public comments were frustrating U.S. counterterrorism efforts. "What he doesn't realize is that we actually depend on Muslims to do counterterrorism, to wage war against terrorists." Trump's remarks concerning Muslims "decreases their willingness to work with us, with other Muslims, and that impedes our ability to destroy ISIS". McMullin also criticized Trump's "allegiance to [Russian President] Vladimir Putin" and accused Putin of engaging in a campaign to destabilize European and North American countries "through fomenting discord between different racial groups, different ethnic groups, and different religious groups".

In 2014, McMullin helped to bring Caesar, a defected Syrian military photographer who leaked 55,000 images depicting abuses by the regime (which formed the basis for the 2014 Syrian detainee report), to speak before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to The Christian Science Monitor. McMullin clashed with State Department officials he suspected were holding up the hearing. McMullin claimed that State Department officials wanted to have a closed hearing.

Social issues McMullin supported overturning Roe v. Wade in 2016. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, McMullin issued a statement saying, "I believe the never-ending conflict over abortion laws threatens a public health crisis and further divide the country on an issue where there is common ground." He described himself as "pro-life" and said that he "opposed politicians at the extremes of both parties on the issue, those who would ban all abortions without exceptions and those who oppose all restrictions." He criticized "extreme" state laws enacted after Dobbs, including bans on all abortions, In previous statements, McMullin said there was common ground between Americans who support and oppose abortion rights, criticized the divisive "never-ending tug-of-war" of the abortion debate, and noted that the number of U.S. abortions has been declining for years.

On same-sex marriage, McMullin said that he believes in "traditional marriage between a man and a woman" but he "respects" the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (which found that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry) and thinks it is "time to move on" from the issue. McMullin's mother is in a same-sex marriage, having married another woman after separating from his father, and McMullin has said, "As far as my mother's marriage is concerned, I believe in the sanctity of traditional marriage. It is an important part of my faith. My mother has a different view. That is OK. I love her very much." McMullin has also supported allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for prescription drugs. In June 2021, McMullin married Emily Norton. The family lives in Highland, Utah.