BuzzFeed News reports, and several other sources have confirmed, that a third candidate—an anti-Trump Republican—is set to declare his candidacy on Monday. This news will either blow up the entire election season, that has thus far been a festival of fuck ups, or do nothing much at all.
The candidate is reportedly Evan McMullin, current chief policy director for the House Republican conference who has spent the majority of his career as a CIA agent, attended Wharton (like Trump), has never held elective office, and is largely unknown.
He has just 1,536 Twitter followers, and only one non-spam page of Google results. In the past 20 minutes, his Google results seems to have changed: at 8:18 a.m., McMullin’s first result (of his relatively few results) was his LinkedIn page. Now, that seems to have been replaced with his Wikipedia page, which seems to have been completely written this morning.
From BuzzFeed:
Sources said McMullin was planning to file his paperwork Monday at around noon. Apart from his low profile, his candidacy will face other substantial hurdles in gaining traction—especially with ballot access and fundraising. But people close to the effort suggested McMullin would have the backing of serious Republican donors and fundraisers. They also pointed to his ties in Utah, a state where polls show Trump badly underperforming with the Mormon-heavy electorate. McMullin, an alum of Brigham Young University, plans to aggressively contest the state.
“As Donald Trump continues attacking Muslims and as a former CIA officer, I’d like all Americans to know the truth,” he wrote on his Facebook page on August 2, “American and other Muslims have played a central role in virtually every counter terrorism win we’ve had since 9/11. They are an indispensable asset in this fight. Attacking them as a group makes America weaker, not stronger.”
The post received 137 likes.
GET JEZEBEL RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
