Spurred on by a lack of conservative presidential candidates in this year’s election, Evan McMullin decided to run as an independent to try to prevent either major party candidate from winning, and to help a “new conservative movement” take hold in the country.

McMullin and his vice-presidential running mate, Mindy Finn, brought that message to a crowd of several hundred people at Colorado Christian University in Lakewood Tuesday night, Oct. 25, in an appearance sponsored by the college’s Centennial Institute think tank.

In brief comments to reporters before he took the stage, McMullin said the two major parties offer “very poor choices,” and that if he and Finn can help siphon votes away from Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton so neither one gets enough Electoral College votes to clinch the race, “I like our chances,” in the U.S. House of Representatives, he said, which – in such a scenario, would decide the winner.

McMullin was chief policy director for the House Republican Conference and Finn has been a GOP activist.

The key will be convincing enough voters to get out of the mindset of casting a vote for the lesser of two evils, McMullin added.

Finn said it will be important to send the message that nobody is entitled to votes, something she and McMullin said both Trump and Clinton portray in their campaigning.

In an interview with The Colorado Statesman, campaign manager Joel Searhy said the support McMullin and Finn had received showed, “It’s clear we’ve tapped in to something. We’ll see on Election Day how many millions will add their votes to this movement. But I think we’ve got incredible traction.”

And Searhy noted that he felt it was “very likely” McMullin would win the Utah vote and do very well in other states. Polls show McMullin either tied with or slightly ahead of Trump and Clinton in his home state.

“If that happens, he will be the first truly independent candidate to win an electoral college vote,” Searhy said.

In 1968, George Wallace ran for president as a member of the American Independent Party and won Electoral College votes in several southern states. Like McMullin now and Strom Thurmond in 1948, Wallace wanted to win enough electoral votes to throw the election into the House of Representatives. That did not occur. McMullin and Finn want to keep either Clinton or Trump from reaching 270 electoral votes to force the House to decide the election. Utah has six electoral college votes.

In 1992, H. Ross Perot ran for president as an independent candidate and garnered 19 percent of the popular vote but no Electoral College votes. Four years later, he formed the Reform Party and ran as that party’s presidential candidate but received just 8 percent of the popular vote.

Underdog campaign battles hard

Searhy said the McMullin campaign raises nearly all its money online and does not have billionaire donors. The campaign has just 20 full-time staffers and tens of thousands of volunteers across the country, he added.

Unlike those at Clinton and Trump rallies, handmade campaign signs for McMullin were on the walls and in the crowd, with messages like “It’s Never Too Late to do the Right Thing. Vote for Evan McMullin for President,” and “We Want Principled, Honest Leaders.”

McMullin’s message had already reached some in the crowd, such as Della Ingrando, who traveled from Monument to attend the rally.

“I like his platform calling for new leadership, strong leadership,” Ingrando said before McMullin addressed the crowd. “He’s constitutional and conservative and I think he would work for we, the people.”

Ingrando said she had supported the Republican Party spin-off effort dubbed “Never Trump”and started supporting McMullin about two weeks earlier. When asked is she thought McMullin could actually win, Ingrando replied, “Of course. I think he’ll make a difference in the electoral votes. Stopping both Clinton and Trump is the main thing.”

Making the case

Searhy told the crowd that leading the McMullin campaign was the hardest thing he’s ever done.

“I mean there are really hard days,” he said. “But when something is important enough, you’re willing to do the hard thing.”

Searhy said when votes are counted in a couple of weeks, “We will make a very strong showing.”

Finn told the crowd she does not trust either Trump or Clinton to lead the country into the future. She called Trump “dangerous.”

“I want to teach my child to respect others, but here we have a candidate who is anathema to all those things,” she said. “He’s not a good role model, he praises dictators, he wants to expand the size of the federal government and brags and boasts about using his powers to assault women.”

Clinton used the secretary of state’s office for her own personal gain, and the personal email server saga raises many questions about Clinton’s character, Finn added.

“So when Evan asked me to run, I wasn’t planning to run for vice president this year,” she said to laughter from the crowd. “But when you have two candidates so unfit for office, I agreed. After all, your votes don’t belong to Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, they belong to you.”

A time to act

When the crowded GOP presidential primary field took hold, McMullen said he felt they were all good people he could support.

“It seemed like they understood the constitution, national security and would spread the word about conservatism to others who didn’t traditionally get involved in conservative causes,” he told the crowd.

Then, as Trump attacked minorities, women and the disabled, McMullin said he realized “we can’t have him as the Republican nominee, it will fragment the party.”

“I can’t get on board with Donald Trump when he will not stand for any principles I believe in,” he said. “When I talked to others in the party about making sure he didn’t get the nomination, they said if they oppose him, he would send them mean tweets.”

Some GOP leaders privately told McMullin they support his efforts and campaign, but couldn’t take that public stance, he stated, because they would lose party support or re-election.

McMullin started seriously considering an independent campaign for president when the now-defunct Better for America 501-(c)(4) political group started looking for a third candidate to run for the office. After the two major party conventions, McMullin said he told the group he would consider running. Ten days later, he agreed. McMullin announced his candidacy Aug. 8.

“I just had this growing conviction that this was something that had to happen, and if no one else would do it, I would do it,” he added. “No matter what happened, electorally or to my reputation. I just could not justify not doing what I know is right.”

Now, McMullin said he is very humbled and inspired at the response to his campaign. Around 5,000 people in Denver are volunteering to help his effort and response has been very strong in important states like Wisconsin, Iowa, Florida and Minnesota, McMullin said.

“New conservative movement” needed

“It’s time for a new conservative movement, centered around some basic truths,” McMullin said. “Those are that all men and women are created equal, we’re all endowed by our creator with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” a slight paraphrase of the words in the Declaration of Independence.

McMullin added Trump does not believe any of those principles and the Republican Party is “failing miserably” in being the vehicle to move the conservative ideals forward.

“I think there are many African-Americans in this country who are really conservative in their views,” he said. “But they don’t feel welcome in the Republican Party because of the color of their skin. And I think there are people in the Republican Party who don’t believe all people are equal.”

Likewise, McMullin said he has talked to Muslim Americans – “many of whom know more about our constitution than many Americans” – but they don’t feel welcome in the GOP either.

To counter that, and help grow the conservative movement, McMullin said it is important to have a strong showing Nov. 8.

“I believe votes are wasted if they’re taken for granted,” he added. “Donald Trump is a wasted vote because he takes them for granted. Both Trump and Clinton are cut from the same cloth. They will both grow the size of government at the cost of our liberties.”

Opening the economy to new ideas and factors will help America move forward, McMullin said.

“That means if Colorado wants a more market-based health care system, let them have it,” he added, referring to Amendment 69 on the election ballot.

Education reform with more parental involvement in curriculum and other areas, strengthening religious liberties and not restricting leaders from speaking about their religious beliefs are also part of the new conservative movement, McMullin said.

“I really think this movement will start here in the mountain west, because people here rejected Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,” he added, a reference to Colorado delegates to both conventions favoring Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders.

After the rally, as people formed a line that stretched half way around the gymnasium to take selfies with McMullin and Finn, some people did not want to give their names to The Colorado Statesman when asked their thoughts on McMullin’s candidacy.

One man, who said only that he lives in the metro Denver area, was very impressed that McMullin had stood up and run as an independent. He was gathering information on several other presidential candidates to help him decide how to vote.

“I think he earned something greater than my vote tonight,” the man said. “He has my respect for the courage it took to stand up against the two major parties.”