Independent presidential candidate and BYU alumnus Evan McMullin has officially begun his efforts toward becoming a presidential nominee.
Following a speech on Wednesday in Salt Lake City to kick off McMullin's campaign, campaign members started collecting signatures to secure McMullin a space on the November ballot. According to Utah state law, the McMullin campaign must submit 1,000 signatures petitioning for his placement on the ballot by Aug. 15.
This gives the campaign three days to collect all of the required signatures.
Little is known about McMullin, a former-CIA agent, but his campaign has no problem talking about republican candidate Donald Trump. A tweet from McMullin’s personal Twitter handle Thursday read, “Trump is a con man.”
https://twitter.com/evan_mcmullin/status/763764196316213248
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, McMullin revealed that he had not yet decided on a running mate for Vice President, noting how quickly the campaign has come together.
However, the form distributed by the campaign for collecting signatures listed Nathan Johnson as the VP on the McMullin ticket.
Brian Henderson, Utah Director for McMullin for President, said people shouldn’t read too much into Johnson’s name being included. Utah laws require that a VP candidate be named and Johnson’s name will be replaced once McMullin reaches a decision.
“There’s no story there,” Henderson said.
While the campaign is publicly denying Johnson as a potential running mate, selecting him would certainly make things interesting. It raises the possibility that Utah voters could consider an all-Mormon ticket for the first time in recent memory.
Regardless, McMullin's choice of running mate is meaningless unless he can gather the needed signatures in a matter of days. For McMullin, the presidential race is currently one against time.
McMullin Campaign Signature Collection Form by Josh Thomas on Scribd
Correction: Originally this article cited Nathan Johnson, an LDS man from Ohio who said a prayer at the Republican National Convention, as Evan McMullin's fill-in Vice President. The article has been corrected to only Nathan Johnson, since the Johnson from Ohio has no political ties to Evan McMullin's campaign.