Evan McMullin, a CIA veteran and chief policy director of the House Republican conference, announced Monday that he’s launching an independent presidential bid, BuzzFeed reports.
“Like millions of Americans, I had hoped this year would bring us better nominees who, despite party differences, could offer compelling visions of a better future,” McMullin wrote in a statement on his campaign website.
“Instead, we have been left with two candidates who are fundamentally unfit for the profound responsibilities they seek,” he added.
McMullin’s campaign will have the support of key players in the GOP’s anti-Trump movement, including veteran Republican strategist Rick Wilson, who has been an outspoken Trump critic, according to BuzzFeed.
Sources said McMullin is also being backed by a group called Better for America, which has been working to gain ballot access for an independent candidate.
McMullin has never held elective office before and has spent most of his career as a CIA officer. Young and unmarried, McMullin received an MBA at Wharton in 2011, and after a stint at Goldman Sachs, went to work as a policy wonk on Capitol Hill.
Though McMullin’s announcement included some bipartisan appeals to disaffected voters in both parties, he made clear he would be running as a conservative.
“Millions of Americans are not being represented by either of these candidates,” he wrote, pitching himself to voters who were concerned about “the strength of the military” and “limited, Constitutional government.”
McMullin on Monday afternoon sought to differentiate himself from both nominees.
"Hillary Clinton is a corrupt career politician who has recklessly handled classified information in an attempt to avoid accountability and put American lives at risk including those of my former colleagues," McMullin wrote on his campaign site, in an attempt to distinguish himself from the Republican and Democratic nominees.
“Donald Trump,” he continued, “appeals to the worst fears of Americans at a time we need unity, not division. Republicans are deeply divided by a man who is perilously close to gaining the most powerful position in the world, and many rightly see him as a real threat to our Republic."
BuzzFeed noted that unlike National Review writer David French, another conservative courted by anti-Trump Republicans to launch a long-shot third-party bid, McMullin has virtually no public profile. He doesn’t appear regularly on television, and had just 135 followers on Twitter before the website reported his plans to run.
His most recent high-profile appearance seems to have been a TEDx talk about genocide he gave at London Business School in April. He also delivered a speech in May about the future of the Republican Party.
Even with his small audience, noted the website, McMullin has been a vocal critic of Trump on social media. On the night of Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention, he tweeted that Trump was an “authoritarian” who was seeking to infringe on civil rights and establish a “police state.”