The rise and rise of Evan McMullin (formerly Egg McMuffin)

[Mr. Morden]

In the unlikely event he wins utah and the election is close enough that the electoral college gets deadlocked I can easily see the house voting for him over Trump

No chance in hell because that assumes that the GOP is actually principled. There is NO way that House GOP members will risk arousing the ire of their base back home and potentially lose their primaries by virtue of voting for an independent candidate who received fewer votes than Trump and making him POTUS.

As Vosem notes here, in the unlikely event of an electoral college deadlock, there are enough anti-Trump Republicans in the House that there would almost certainly be a deadlock.  Neither Trump nor any other candidate would be able to win a majority of House delegations.  So if the GOP controls the Senate, then the House deadlocks, the Senate elects Pence as VP, and we get President Pence.  OTOH, if the Dems control the Senate, then the House Republicans have a strong incentive to reach a compromise, in order to avoid President Kaine.

[Mr. Morden]

In the unlikely event he wins utah and the election is close enough that the electoral college gets deadlocked I can easily see the house voting for him over Trump

No chance in hell because that assumes that the GOP is actually principled. There is NO way that House GOP members will risk arousing the ire of their base back home and potentially lose their primaries by virtue of voting for an independent candidate who received fewer votes than Trump and making him POTUS.

As Vosem notes here, in the unlikely event of an electoral college deadlock, there are enough anti-Trump Republicans in the House that there would almost certainly be a deadlock.  Neither Trump nor any other candidate would be able to win a majority of House delegations.  So if the GOP controls the Senate, then the House deadlocks, the Senate elects Pence as VP, and we get President Pence.  OTOH, if the Dems control the Senate, then the House Republicans have a strong incentive to reach a compromise, in order to avoid President Kaine.

But wouldn't the lame duck Senate make the choice, so either way Pence wins?

No, I don't think so.  The new Congress is sworn in at the beginning of January, and that's when the electoral college results are read out.  The old Congress will have left town at that point.

[Mr. Morden]

Like I said in the Monmouth poll thread, I think the folks here claiming that it's "necessary" for him to get certain endorsements in order to at least finish in the top two in Utah are off the mark.  The most important thing is for him to get media exposure, so voters actually know who he is.  That Monmouth poll has a whopping 66% of voters having no opinion of him, yet he's still at 20% support.  The ideal scenario for him is to have his strong poll #s generate a bunch of news stories about him in Utah, leading much/most of that 66% to become aware of his existence, and then for a respectable chunk of those people to decide to vote for him.

I mean, Trump is at ~70% unfavorable in Utah, so there are a lot of potential voters for McMullin to pick off.  That can happen even without any advertising or endorsements.

[Mr. Morden]

Like I said in the Monmouth poll thread, I think the folks here claiming that it's "necessary" for him to get certain endorsements in order to at least finish in the top two in Utah are off the mark.  The most important thing is for him to get media exposure, so voters actually know who he is.  That Monmouth poll has a whopping 66% of voters having no opinion of him, yet he's still at 20% support.  The ideal scenario for him is to have his strong poll #s generate a bunch of news stories about him in Utah, leading much/most of that 66% to become aware of his existence, and then for a respectable chunk of those people to decide to vote for him.

I mean, Trump is at ~70% unfavorable in Utah, so there are a lot of potential voters for McMullin to pick off.  That can happen even without any advertising or endorsements.

That might be true, but endorsements from top Utah politicians or Mitt Romney would really help in generating these news.

Of course.  It would absolutely be a boon to him.  I'm just saying, he can do it even without endorsements.  He can do it even without spending money on ads.  What he needs is free media.  And I'm just saying, in principle, the very fact that he has these poll #s now could itself set up a free media positive feedback loop for him: The news media jumps on his strong #s, which exposes more people to McMullin, which leads to higher poll #s, etc.

[Mr. Morden]

Btw, this thread is funny in retrospect:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=236158.0

For the 100000th time: No. IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. When will Atlas finally realize this? lol

Who would have thought at that point that a no-name conservative 3rd party candidate would have a legitimate shot at winning a state in this election?

I bet if someone wrote a 2016 timeline a year ago, and included this sideplot about Evan McMullin being tied in Utah polls, the author would be criticized for being unrealistic.

[Mr. Morden]

This thread is also funny:

Honestly I think the whole point of this is to try and get this to a no-majority situation so the House can elect Paul Ryan an establishment Republican to the Presidency.

Uh, the guy has zero chance of winning any states, and a near zero chance of breaking 1% in any state except Utah.

[Mr. Morden]

McMullin represents principled conservatism which apparently has few adherents in today's America. Most so-called conservatives are overjoyed at supporting a cynical fascist instead.

To be fair, McMullin would probably be getting more support if he got any national media coverage / the average voter had any clue who he was.