Juan Williams: An odd race in Utah gives hope to the nation

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Since 1971, only eight United States Senators have been independent or affiliated with a third party.

The ninth may be on his way if Evan McMullin wins the Utah Senate race this year.

The election is one-of-a-kind strange in that McMullin is a lifelong Republican running with the tacit endorsement of Utah Democrats, who decided against running any candidate of their own.

His opponent is Trump ally and two-term incumbent, Sen. Mike Lee (R). The campaign is already labeled by Politico as “the strangest Senate race in America.”

What takes it beyond strange to significant is that a McMullin win potentially opens a new way for politicians to get out of the rut of polarized, do-nothing, two-party politics. 

Think of McMullin as Luke Skywalker, the rebel pilot in Star Wars, trying to blow up the Empire’s star ship. 

Last year, 62 percent of voters told Gallup they want a third-party alternative to the Republicans and Democrats. Those numbers mean McMullin is an underdog in the right place at the right time to benefit from widespread discontent . 

In other words, to continue the Star Wars analogy, a lot of people well beyond Utah’s corners are hoping “The Force” is with McMullin.

Inside Utah, the Democrats are betting that the best odds for beating a far-right Trump sycophant in this deep-red state is with a moderate Republican. At a time of division between the parties, the state’s Democrats are asking the state’s GOP majority to join them in rejecting extremism.

There is no doubt about Lee’s extremism — even though he did eventually vote to certify the election — because of earlier text messages he exchanged with Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, offering support to Trump’s illegal efforts to overturn that election. 

“There also are those in the Senate who, I think, are dangerously extreme, Sen. Lee is one of them, and others who have contributed to a weakening of this institution of Congress, and the Senate and of our democracy,” McMullin told NBC’s Chuck Todd in July. 

A poll from the Deseret News and the Hinckley Institute of Politics released last Thursday showed Lee with a mere two-point lead over McMullin. Other polls show Lee with a bigger lead.

But the reality that the race is closer than expected bodes well not just for McMullin but for other unaffiliated candidates across the nation looking to upend what many see as a paralyzed two-party system. 

Multiple polls show voters have a strong appetite for something other than tribal politics, bitter personal attacks and appeals to racial anger.

A Pew poll from August found 38 percent saying they strongly “wish there were more political parties to choose from in this country.”

There is an audience for politicians willing to take an independent stand on solving problems.

McMullin offers a model to voters nationwide of the potential to find independent-minded politicians in local and congressional races.

This is the same design being attempted by the new Forward party founded by Andrew Yang, former Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), and former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman (R).

“For the first time in modern history, roughly half of Americans consider themselves ‘independents,’ and two-thirds say a new party is needed (and would vote for it),” the trio wrote in the Washington Post in July.

Yang, Jolly and Whitman added: “Some call third parties ‘spoilers,’ but the system is already spoiled. There are more than 500,000 elected positions in the United States, but a recent study found more than 70 percent of races on ballots in 2020 were unopposed or uncontested. A tiny sliver of U.S. congressional seats will have close races this November. The two major parties have shut out competition, and America is suffering as a result.”

If he makes it to the Senate, McMullin says he plans to remain independent of both the Democrats’ and Republicans’ caucus politics. 

Maine’s Sen. Angus King and Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders, both independents, caucus with Democrats. 

Once McMullin gets to the Senate he wants to remain open to talks with Republicans and Democrats and even voting with either side if their stand on an issue holds appeal for him.

The number one issue for him, he says, is protecting democracy from Trump’s election deniers. 

That fits with a former senator from Utah, the late Bob Bennett.

In the days before he died in 2016, Bennett felt the need to personally apologize to every Muslim he met for the hateful words coming from Trump.

Win or lose, McMullin’s candidacy brings new life to the idea of independent candidacies. If he wins it will be historic.

Go, Evan, Go! 

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.