Independent Senate hopeful McMullin: Utah ‘needs better representation’
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- Independent U.S. Senate candidate Evan McMullin sits for an interview with members of the Standard-Examiner and Daily Herald editorial boards at the Standard-Examiner office in Ogden on Monday, Oct. 24, 2022.
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- Independent U.S. Senate candidate Evan McMullin sits for an interview with members of the Standard-Examiner and Daily Herald editorial boards at the Standard-Examiner office in Ogden on Monday, Oct. 24, 2022.
Editor’s note: This is the first of a series of stories on U.S. Senate hopefuls Mike Lee and Evan McMullin, the major contenders for the post this cycle. McMullin met with the Standard-Examiner and Daily Herald to discuss his candidacy with the newspapers.
OGDEN — In running for the U.S. Senate as an independent — someone willing to work with both major parties but beholden to neither — Evan McMullin says he offers a way to help find common ground on some of the nation’s thorniest issues.
If elected, he says he can be a middleman, of sorts, in brokering accord among Democrats and Republicans in Congress, following the example of other senators who have served Utah, including Mitt Romney, still in office, and the late Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch. GOP incumbent Sen. Mike Lee, seeking his third term in the post, doesn’t fit that mold, McMullin charges, but rather, views the world “through his partisan lenses,” which figures big in the independent hopeful’s bid.
“I think Utah needs better representation in the U.S. Senate, just as much as Washington and the country needs Utah’s leadership,” McMullin said during a visit to the Standard-Examiner office in Ogden. “We’re at a point in this country where we’re so divided that it seems now as though we’re coming apart.”
McMullin, who describes himself as center-right, said he had been a registered independent for most of his adult life, though he typically backed only Republican candidates. He jumped knee deep into the political scene in 2016, when he launched an independent bid for U.S. president, dismayed with Donald Trump, the GOP candidate and eventual winner.
In his earlier career as an undercover operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency, McMullin lived in countries “controlled by authoritarians and dictators, and (Trump) talked exactly like all of them,” he said. “It was clear to me that he wanted to be a dictator in America.”
McMullin, who lives in Highland and also previously worked as policy director for U.S. House Republicans, garnered 21.5% of the presidential vote in Utah in 2016. He decided to step back in the political ring for this year’s Senate race, worried traditional U.S. ideals were threatened.
He alluded to the false assertions that Trump won the 2020 presidential vote, referencing the notion in the U.S. system of government that when a candidate loses a race for office he or she accepts the results. He referenced the ideals laid out in the U.S. Declaration of Independence that Americans have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
“I truly believe that the core source of America’s strength is our commitment to those ideals, and when it weakens, so does our country. We become less prosperous, we become less secure,” McMullin said. The country has reached such a crossroads before and is there again, he claims, “so I’m running to keep our country committed to its core ideals, Democrats and independents together.”
Reasserting the commitment to traditional U.S. values, he maintains, can create a foundation of trust among politicos. “We can then find common ground to solve many other challenges, whether it’s lowering inflation, getting our … fiscal house in order as a country, protecting our air and water, lowering health care costs — all the problems that are just stacking up in our country without being solved,” he said.
There’s enough common ground among most Utahns and most Americans to resolve the issues the country faces, McMullin argues, but bringing the sides together requires a sort of leadership he says Lee lacks. “And so that’s why I’m running — to do that. My opponent has become someone who embodies the politics of division and extremism in America. That’s not the Utah way,” McMullin said.
On the flip side, Romney is “willing to work constructively with members of his own party and members of the opposing party,” McMullin said. “And so I’m committed to that approach. I think it’s more consistent with our way of doing things here in Utah, and has been for a long time.”
The stakes, as McMullin sees it, are big for Utah, making the state one of the most influential in the nation if he’s elected. Given his independent status, he believes he would be able to serve as a power broker in crafting legislation, much like Romney given his willingness to collaborate with Democrats on certain issues.
“I think we’ve all seen over the last year or two that senators who act with greater independence really become the most influential people, (not only) in the chamber, but also in Washington, second to the president, of course. And I want that for us,” he said.
McMullin already has been fielding calls from Democratic and Republican leaders, asking him if he’d be willing to support certain legislative proposals in Washington, D.C. “It’s a tremendous opportunity for us,” McMullin said.
In his interview with the Standard-Examiner, McMullin name-dropped Romney several times, holding him out as a model. Though Romney has taken a high-profile role in varied legislative initiatives given his collaboration with Senate Democrats, he’s has also mustered scorn from some Utah GOPers, in part because of the criticism he’s lobbed Trump’s way and his vote to impeach Trump last year.
“We need people like Sen. Romney, who will go to Washington and work with whoever to do good things. That’s my approach,” McMullin said. “You can work with presidents of either party and hold them accountable at the same time. You can do that, and, in fact, that is the job.”
