Is Evan McMullin Really Playing to Win?

For those who might not know, Evan McMullin is a conservative “Never Trump” Republican presidential candidate who has gotten on the ballot in 11 states. He is making waves in one of them (Utah) with the possibility for waves in another (Idaho). As a principled stand, McMullin’s candidacy makes some sense.  There are lots of reasons Republicans can’t stand Clinton as well as lots of reason they can’t stomach Trump.

But that is not the only argument his camp is making and this is where he comes undone. McMullin’s camp is now spurred on by a 538 story http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-evan-mcmullin-could-win-utah-and-the-presidency/ that describes a plan to victory that keeps Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both under 270 electoral college votes and thus throws the race to the House.  https://twitter.com/Evan_McMullin/status/787473094529003520 McMullin’s chief adviser touted that possibility today. https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/789555652767076353

At the same time, however, McMullin is pursuing another strategy that would make it impossible for him to deny both Trump and Clinton the electoral votes needed to win. McMullin is calling for voters to vote for him in all 50 states. Because McMullin is more conservative leaning, his voters, particularly those who write in his names in states where he’s not on the ballot, could cost Trump some states. The conservative leader Eric Erikson, formerly of Red State, says he is writing in McMullin in Georgia. That is a state McMullin definitely needs Trump to win to keep Clinton under 270 and preserve his own chance of winning the presidency in the House. Yet, here is McMullin bragging about a vote he got in Georgia. https://twitter.com/Evan_McMullin/status/789203260628271104

It might be fun to pretend you could win if you got lucky. But the rest of McMullin’s messaging suggests he wants votes everywhere and the better he does in states he can’t win, the less chance he has to win. Without the explicit command not to hurt Trump, the McMullin campaign is just helping Clinton.  

Clarity from the campaign on whether it is playing to win, or playing to get as many votes as possible, would be helpful. For now it seems as if McMullin would like to chase the fever dream without acknowledging that his actions undermine his admittedly tiny chances to win.

This all might seem like pointless speculation and, to some extent, it is. But it is important to remember that during the Republican primaries the inability to run internal simulations of what would happen with so many candidates and no cooperation helped make Trump the winner. The Republican establishment didn’t focus on or understand the rules. Being mushy on these tactical questions is what got Republicans into this fix to begin with.  

Being clear about how systems work is as important as being clear about what you are trying to accomplish.  Lacking this clarity matters. McMullin does not appear to be playing to win and thus should not lean on it in his messaging.