The anti-Trump forces within the GOP found their champion: Evan McMullin, a former CIA spy, who launched a third-party presidential bid Monday as a conservative alternative to both Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
His run faces high hurdles just to get on ballots, and he’s starting from zero — with no name recognition and limited campaign infrastructure — just 91 days until the election.
But his long-shot bid, apparently fueled by big-money GOP donors, demonstrated that the Republican establishment and its #NeverTrump adherents will never give up, and, at the very least, will keep aggravating Mr. Trump until November.
Mr. McMullin, 40, a counterterrorism expert who most recently served as chief policy director to the House Republican Conference, said he was getting in the White House race out of a sense of duty and because of his profound disappointment with the two leading candidates.
“With the stakes so high for our nation and at this late stage in the process, I can no longer stand on the sidelines,” Mr. McMullin wrote in “My Letter to America,” posted on his campaign website.
He described Mrs. Clinton as 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.”
He said that Mr. Trump “appeals to the worst fears of Americans at a time we need unity, not division,” and he warned that the New York billionaire’s “obvious personal instability” makes him unfit to command the U.S. military and nuclear arsenal.
Mr. McMullin worked 11 years as a CIA undercover agent and ran the agency’s clandestine operations before retiring in 2010. He went to work for Goldman Sachs in San Francisco and then served two years as a senior adviser to the House Foreign Affairs Committee before taking the job with the Republican conference.
As he launched his presidential campaign, Mr. McMullin resigned from his post at the House Republican Conference.
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who has had a tortured relationship with Mr. Trump, said through a spokeswoman that he did not learn of Mr. McMullin’s run until it was announced Monday.
In an email to supporters, the McMullin campaign said that “he is running, first and foremost, out of a deep love for this country, and because he understands the true brand of American leadership that is required to be Commander-in-Chief.”
The email asked for donations of as little as $1, saying, “Every little bit counts!”
His campaign had links to the anti-Trump group Better for America, which for months has been trying to recruit a suitable and willing candidate.
The nonprofit group was founded with support from Republican donor John Kingston III, who was a prominent backer of 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney, another anti-Trump standout.
Earlier in the year, Republicans seeking an alternative to Mr. Trump floated a candidacy by Iraq War veteran and conservative commentator David French. He removed himself from consideration in June.
The anti-Trump crowd within the GOP establishment has been dogging Mr. Trump since he began to close in on the nomination and knocked out party stalwarts, such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Regardless of the amount of longing and money behind Mr. McMullin, third-party candidates in U.S. presidential elections rarely garner more than 5 percent of the vote. Even the most successful recent third-party runs, including Ross Perot’s two runs in the 1990s and Ralph Nader’s 2000 campaign, did not win a single electoral vote.
The other third-party candidates in the 2016 race get a combined 12 percent of the national vote, with Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson at 8.2 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 3.8 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls.
They also are on the ballot in most states.
Better for America has been working on ballot access and is expected to get Mr. McMullin on the ballot in a half-dozen states, such as New Mexico, New Jersey and Iowa.
But the filing deadline already passed in more than 20 states, including battlegrounds of Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Other deadlines are fast approaching. The filing deadline is Wednesday in seven states, including Colorado and New Hampshire. By the end of next week, the ballots close in another seven states, including Utah, where Mr. McMullin grew up and has strong ties to the Mormon community.
Former Rep. Virgil Goode, who won in his Virginia district as a Democrat, independent and then as a Republican, and was the 2012 Constitution Party presidential nominee, predicted that Mr. McMullin would have “zero” impact on the race, mostly because he didn’t have time to get on the ballots.
“Who is he?” asked Mr. Goode. “He’s not going to hurt Trump at all. It’s too late.”
Still, Mr. McMullin’s campaign could pose a distraction to Mr. Trump and serve as a reminder of the discord within the GOP.
“McMullin’s run seems to me to be pretty unlikely to have measurable consequences in the election results. But it will serve to further challenge the legitimacy of Trump’s candidacy,” said Marquette University political science professor Julia R. Azari, whose research includes third-party candidacies.
She said Mr. McMullin could help the party, but only by undermining Mr. Trump.
“If Trump wins, these challenges will make it harder for him to govern. If he loses, a record of legitimacy challenges during the election will, I think, make it easier for Republicans to rebuild,” said Ms. Azari.
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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