Evan McMullin

When asked if there was any possibility of him running for Jason Chaffetz's seat in 2018, he answered: "It is likely that I will seek public office again. That might be in 2018 or it might be sometime down the road, perhaps very far down the road. I genuinely just don't know yet. I'm very focused on things that I think need to be done ASAP and Mindy Finn and I, with our team at Stand Up Republic, advancing them now. It is possible that I will challenge Chaffetz or Senator Hatch, but there are a lot of factors that go into that decision." In the end, he did not run for either office.

McMullin lost the election, receiving 734,737 votes nationwide (0.54%). His best performance came in his native Utah, where he received about 20% of the vote and came in third place behind Trump and Clinton. After the election, McMullin said that he would start a "new conservative movement" reaching out to "non-traditional conservative voters... who feel disaffected." It might, he said, form a new political party. On January 25, 2017, McMullin announced the formation of Stand Up Republic, a nonpartisan watchdog organization meant to ensure that the Trump administration upholds democracy and tells the truth.

In late January 2017, McMullin and his former running mate Finn announced the establishment of a 501(c)(4) organization, Stand Up Republic. The group focuses on "defense of democratic (small 'd') norms, constitutionalism and civic involvement." Speaking on so-called "alternative facts" McMullin said: "Undermining truth is a typical authoritarian tactic. It is incredibly dangerous ... We never thought we'd be talking about this in America." In a February 2017 op-ed, McMullin wrote that "President Trump's disturbing Russian connections present an acute danger to American national security." He called upon congressional Republicans to "recommit to patriotic prudence" and "demand that Attorney General Jeff Sessions appoint an independent special counsel to investigate Russia's assault on American democracy and Mr. Trump's possible collusion with the Kremlin.

In August 2016, McMullin launched a presidential campaign in the 2016 election for President of the United States, as an independent candidate backed by the organization Better for America. Receiving support from some members of the "Never Trump" movement, polling taken late in the campaign showed him ahead of major party nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in his home state of Utah. In the end, McMullin received 21.5% in Utah, taking third place in that state behind Trump and Clinton. Nationally, he received 0.53% of the popular vote.

In August 2016, McMullin launched a presidential campaign in the 2016 election for President of the United States, as an independent candidate backed by the organization Better for America. McMullin described himself as a conservative alternative to the two major political parties' candidates, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump.

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. McMullin decided to run due to his belief that Republican nominee Donald Trump was unfit for the office and his strong opposition to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's liberalism. 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.

McMullin had the support of several anti-Trump Republican donors 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. Trump repeatedly attacked McMullin, referring to him as "McMuffin" and stating that "I never even heard of this guy before. Nobody did."

After the 2016 campaign, McMullin has continued to be strongly critical of Trump and Putin. In a December 2016, op-ed, McMullin attacked Trump as a threat to American constitutional government, saying that the president-elect's actions were "consistent with the authoritarian playbook" and "undermined critical democratic norms including peaceful debate and transitions of power, commitment to truth, freedom from foreign interference and abstention from the use of executive power for political retribution."

On same-sex marriage, McMullin said in 2016 that he believes in the "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 that "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."

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.

In 2013, McMullin became a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for the 113th Congress. In 2015, McMullin became the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference under Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). 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. McMullin resigned as chief policy director shortly before declaring his run for the presidency in August 2016.

After working for the CIA, McMullin attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he received a Master of Business Administration degree in 2011.

After leaving the CIA and graduating from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011, McMullin began working for the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs, and he remained at the company about a year and a half. 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 Brigham Young University.

McMullin's support surged in Utah in October after the release of a 2005 audio recording in which Donald Trump was heard bragging in lewd terms about making sexual advances on women. On October 19, an Emerson College poll showed McMullin leading the race in Utah by 4 points over Donald Trump and 7 points over Hillary Clinton. 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. His strong polling in Utah led Benjamin Morris, writing for FiveThirtyEight, to call him the "third-most likely person to be the next president of the United States" as of October 13.

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 in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. He was first deployed in 2003 and left the agency in 2010.

McMullin was an operations officer of the CIA from 2001–2010. He then worked for about a year and a half as an investment banker after receiving an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011. He was a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2013–2015, and served as a chief policy director for the House Republican Conference in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 2015 through July 2016.

In 1997, McMullin began attending Brigham Young University; every year he was in college he did a summer internship with the CIA. He spent a year living in Israel and Jordan and volunteered as a refugee resettlement officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. 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.

McMullin was born 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, McMullin spent two years in Brazil as an LDS missionary. Upon returning, he spent a summer working on an Alaskan fishing vessel.

McMullin supports free trade, pointing to the economic benefits of international trade. He supported NAFTA of 1994 and the original Trans-Pacific Partnership.

David Evan McMullin (born April 2, 1976) is an American political activist and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations officer who ran as an independent during the 2016 United States presidential election.