Evan McMullin

David Evan McMullin (born April 2, 1976) is an American political candidate 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.McMullin was a CIA operations officer from 2001 to 2010. In 2011, he received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an investment banker for about a year and a half. He was a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 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. McMullin left the Republican Party in 2016 after Donald Trump became the party's presumptive presidential nominee.

McMullin ran for president in the 2016 election as an independent backed by the organization Better for America. He received support from some members of the "Never Trump" movement, 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 that 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 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 an unusually close margin of 11%.