Evan McMullin Ties Trump In Utah

Republican politician Evan McMullin, who is running for president as an independent candidate, has nearly tied Republican nominee Donald Trump for first place in McMullin’s home state of Utah, a new poll found.

In the Rasmussen Reports survey of likely voters, McMullin had 29 percent, in close pursuit of Trump, who had 30 percent. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton tailed McMullin in the close race with 28 percent. Since the margin of error is 4 percent, all three of them are in a statistical tie. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson took in 5 percent, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein had 1 percent. And 2 percent said that they would vote for another candidate entirely, and four percent were undecided.

McMullin, a former CIA officer, senior adviser for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, remains completely unknown among 15 percent of Utah respondents, while 8 percent said that they are not sure how they feel about him. But a vacancy could remain for him in the state, as 58 percent said that they approve of prominent Utah Republicans disavowing the GOP nominee, while one-third disapproves.

If McMullin wins Utah, he will be the first independent to gain electoral college votes since 1968, notes Heat Street.

FiveThirtyEight’s poll analyst Nate Silver noted that third-party candidates are notoriously difficult to forecast, since they tend to perform better early in the race and fizzle out by the end, and people sometimes name third-party candidates as placeholders for undecided votes. However, Silver said that independents who take in more than 25 percent in polls have a much better shot at winning — and McMullin has passed this threshold in the Utah poll.

“[McMullin is] likely to either gain support or lose it instead of staying where he is right now,” added Silver.

Meanwhile, Johnson is gaining on Trump and Clinton in his home state of New Mexico, where he took in 24 percent of the projected vote in an Oct. 2 Albuquerque Journal poll, compared to Trump’s 31 percent and Clinton’s 35 percent.

If no candidate wins the majority of 270 electoral votes to become president, the vote will go to the House of Representatives to select the president from the top three finishers.

Sources: Rasmussen, Heat Street, FiveThirtyEight, Albuquerque Journal / Photo credit: Evan McMullin/Facebook