According to a new poll, independent conservative candidate Evan McMullin is surging in Utah, his home state. The Deseret News now has him polling at 22%. That’s only 4 percentage points less than both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump who are tied with 26% each.
The poll shows Clinton and Trump tied at 26 percent, McMullin with 22 percent and Libertarian Gary Johnson getting 14 percent if the election were held today. Y2 Analytics surveyed 500 likely Utah voters over landlines and cellphones Oct. 10-11 The poll has a plus or minus 4.4 percent margin of error.
In other words, McMullin’s current 22% is within the margin of error of Trump’s and Hillary’s results. It’s now a three-person race in which these three candidates are statistically tied.
This graph shows the scale of the surge… and Donald Trump’s apparent collapse:
Heres a graph of the trend lines for #Utah polls – and it looks like green means GO! https://t.co/NxAZZOkDxd pic.twitter.com/AlEekDqJIy
— Team McMullin (@TeamMcMullin) October 12, 2016
As you can see, Trump was polling well above 40% in August. Ever since, however, he has completely collapsed. He’s literally losing support by the week. And note: he was already going down well before the audio of him bragging about sexually abusing women was released.
If this trend continues, McMullin could actually win a state. And not just any state, but a traditionally dark-red state at that—a state Trump has to win.
That’s all great news for McMullin, but it gets even better: he has more potential than most commentators anticipated.
McMullin’s ballot strength is striking considering that only 52 percent of voters are aware enough of his candidacy to offer an opinion, according to Y2 Analytics. However, among those that recognize his name, four out of five see him favorably.
Judging from McMullin’s Twitter account, he plans to go all out in Utah. That’s great news for him and other principled conservatives, but it spells absolute disaster for Trump and his nationalist-populist agrarian cult — or whatever they’re calling themselves nowadays.
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