The candidate Evan McMullin, former CIA, hostile to Trump, is elbow with the ultra -conservative outgoing Mike Lee. Centrists see it as a sign of growing interest in the creation of a third party.
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Utah has never seen anything like this: a disputed senatorial. Independent candidate Evan McMullin, a former republican, is in the shoulder-back with the outgoing, Mike Lee, one of the lieutenants of Donald Trump, for the mid-term elections of November 8. In this fundamentally conservative state, Mormon at more than 65 %, but which has never been fully acquired at 45 e president, the performance revives the hopes of the “Never Trumpers”, the anti-Trump republicans always, to form a coalition to “save the American democracy of authoritarianism”, in the words of the candidate.
The rare hair, the benevolent eye, a juvenile smile, Evan McMullin, 46, is not quite a stranger in the political world. Former member of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), revolted by the ascent of Trump eight years ago, he presented himself – already as an independent – in the 2016 presidential election. His name was not on the voting bulletins only in eleven states. But he had produced a remarkable score in Utah for a candidate who is alone: 21.5 %, behind Trump (45 %) and Hillary Clinton (27 %). Mike Lee, senator since 2011, appeared in the TEA Party movement, had even voted for him – before making allegiance to the new Occupant of the White House.
This time, Mr. McMullin presents himself in the Senate and the local democrats decided – rare – not to present a candidate. For most of them, like the mayor of Salt Lake County, Jenny Wilson, the priority is to block the road to Mike Lee, a libertarian lawyer who flirted with the conspirators after the 2020 election, and supported efforts To reverse the result, before changing their mind and approving the certification of the victory of Joe Biden.
American democracy “in great danger”
Other democrats fail to resolve to support the ex-CIA agent. Evan McMullin remains a pure sugar republican: favorable to tax cuts and the maintenance of Guantanamo prison, opposed to abortion and marriage between people of the same sex – although, personally, he indicated to respect the choice of His mother, who, after divorced, remarried with a woman. Not all of them judge as a first price of virtue that had been infiltrated as an agent abroad for ten years. Mr. McMullin worked at the CIA from 2001 to 2011 in counter-terrorism. “My experience at the agency has trained my vision of America,” he said.
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