Evan McMullin

David Evan McMullin (born April 2, 1976) is an American political candidate and former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer.

He was defeated in the November 8 general election by incumbent Republican Mike Lee, losing by a margin of 11% in the closest Senate election in Utah since 1976.

McMullin was born in Provo, Utah, the oldest of four children of David McMullin and Lanie Bullard.

At a young age, his family moved to a rural area outside Seattle, Washington, where his father worked as a computer scientist and his mother sold bulk foods to neighbors from the family's garage.

After graduating in 1994 from Auburn Senior High School, McMullin spent two years in Brazil as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

Upon returning, he spent a summer working on an Alaskan fishing vessel.

In 1997, McMullin began attending Brigham Young University (BYU); every year he was in college he did a summer internship with the CIA.

He spent a year living in Israel and Jordan and volunteered as a refugee resettlement officer for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

McMullin was a CIA operations officer from 2001 to 2010.

In 2001, McMullin graduated with a bachelor's degree in international law and diplomacy and began formal training with the CIA to become an operations officer.

He was first deployed in 2003 and left the agency in 2010.

His deployments included postings in an unspecified southwest Asian country that was key to the-ongoing War on Terror.

While the details of his missions remain classified, former CIA officers who worked with McMullin praised his work, noting his talent for recruiting members of extremist organizations through building trust and willingness to engage in human intelligence outside the confines of the embassy.

His former supervisor said that U.S. intelligence goals at that time included information-gathering for efforts against the Taliban, developing intelligence for counter-terrorism strikes, and searching for information leading to Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders.

Near the end of his CIA career, he worked undercover in Iraq.

McMullin said his work involved meeting with business and government leaders, as well as collecting information from terrorist operatives.

In 2011, he received an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as an investment banker for about a year and a half.

After working for the CIA, McMullin attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he received an MBA in 2011.

Soon after McMullin joined the CIA, the September 11 attacks occurred, leading to an accelerated training and deployment.

He spent the next decade working overseas on counterterrorism and intelligence operations as an operations officer with the National Clandestine Service in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia.

After leaving the CIA, McMullin attended the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, earning his MBA in 2011.

McMullin then worked for the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs for about a year and a half.

In 2012, he volunteered for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, which indirectly led to him being recruited by Republicans on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs looking for an adviser with counter-terrorism experience.

He was a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs from 2013 to 2015 and served as a chief policy director for the House Republican Conference in the U.S. House of Representatives from January 2015 through July 2016.

In 2013, McMullin was an International Advisory Board member for the Kennedy Center for International Studies at BYU.

In 2013, McMullin became a senior adviser on national security issues for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for the 113th Congress.

In 2015, McMullin became the chief policy director of the House Republican Conference under Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.).

McMullin ran as an independent in the 2016 United States presidential election and in the 2022 United States Senate election in Utah.

McMullin left the Republican Party in 2016 after Donald Trump became the party's presumptive presidential nominee.

McMullin ran for president in the 2016 election as an independent backed by the organization Better for America.

He received support from some members of the "Never Trump" movement, and polling taken late in the campaign showed him ahead of major party nominees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in his home state of Utah.

McMullin received 21.5% of the vote in Utah, taking third place in that state behind Trump and Clinton.

Nationally, he received 0.5% of the popular vote.

Following his defeat, McMullin emerged as a vocal critic of the Trump administration.

It was from this position that he watched the 2016 Republican primaries, and when he began to speak out against Trump he was urged by some Republicans to stay out of the fray.

McMullin resigned as chief policy director shortly before declaring his run for the presidency in August 2016.

On August 8, 2016, McMullin announced that he would run as a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 presidential election as an independent.

He endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

He has been involved in early discussions about forming a new center-right political party, and organized the May 2021 release of the political manifesto "A Call for American Renewal" with Miles Taylor.

In 2022, McMullin launched a campaign as an independent in the U.S. Senate election in Utah, receiving the endorsement of the Utah Democratic Party.