The campaign of Evan McMullin (left) got a boost this week when Fox News admitted that the re-election of Sen. Mike Lee (U-UT) (right) was no longer a sure thing. But the news giant still forecasts that Lee’s seat will likely go Republican.
HIGHLAND – The Evan McMullin campaign is crowing about big news in its insurgent effort to unseat Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
This week, they announced, Fox News channel moved the Utah Senate race away from Lee and toward McMullin, the former Central Intelligence Agency officer and independent candidate.
“Experts across the board agree that this is a competitive race,” according to McMullin’s campaign manager Andrew Roberts. “It’s Utah’s most competitive Senate race in almost 50 years.
“Trusted independent polls have consistently shown this race to be neck-and-neck. Our own polling shows Evan McMullin with a narrow lead over Sen. Lee.”
That announcement came after Fox News, Politico, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the Cook Political Report and Inside Elections all shifted the race closer to McMullin, Roberts added.
The term “closer” is a relative one, however.
What Fox News actually said this week is that the Senate race is still likely to go Republican in Lee’s favor.
In fact, none of those election handicappers have actually called the race for McMullin. While they no longer consider Lee a lead-pipe cinch for re-election, those forecasters still agree that his Senate seat will likely be retained by Republicans and that McMullin’s chances of winning are a long-shot.
The McMullin campaign has been trumpeting for weeks about their supposed one-point lead over Lee in Facebook updates and appeals for donations.
The most recent independent polling in the race was conducted by Dan Jones & Associates in mid-July and gave the incumbent a five-point lead. More recent polling by the Utah Debate Commission found that Utah voters favored Lee by a 10-point margin.
McMullin is banking on a coalition of independent voters, disgruntled Democrats and principled Republicans in the upcoming November election. If he unseats Lee, it will be the first such upset since 1976.
A former Republican congressional staffer, McMullin ran as a third-party candidate and alternative to former President Donald Trump in 2016. Despite how that election ended, McMullin captured a surprising 21.5 percent of the vote in Utah.
While busily running against Lee, McMullin is still slamming Trump every chance he gets.
He calls the former president an authoritarian and condemns his role in the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill and his alleged association with extremist groups.
According to McMullin, borrowing Democratic talking points, both Trump and Lee are threats to democracy.
In his “Courage to Lead” campaign rally in early September, McMullin insisted that he was a true conservative,” not Lee.
If McMullin’s long-shot campaign were to succeed, he would join Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont as the Senate’s only independents, both of whom caucus with Democrats.
But McMullin has promised that he would decline to caucus with either Republicans or Democrats.
King and Sanders are not up for re-election this year.