How did Mike Lee win? Attack ads worked and Republicans came home, but independent Evan McMullin paved the way for future bids from moderate candidates.
But it wasn’t enough, and we saw it throughout the polling where the percentage of undecideds remained notably high. Voting against Lee would get McMullin partway there, but he needed to give them something to vote for.
Instead, McMullin was squishy, remaining vague on his positions in an effort to avoid alienating potential voters. It didn’t work.Once ballots went out, the polling firm Y2 Analytics went into the field to do sort of the modern equivalent of the old-time exit polls. From labeling him as a “deadbeat” and an opportunist to painting McMullin as a pro-Biden Trojan horse, Lee and his allies thoroughly redefined McMullin. Their task may have been made easier because McMullin leaned heavily into his years in the CIA, which lends itself to the narrative that maybe he’s not what he claims to be.
Lee didn’t need to convince voters to support him; he just needed to make his opponent seem completely unpalatable to a majority of voters. And he did.. Put another way, 38% voted against him and for one of his two opponents. . In fact, even though nearly one in four said it was more important to have a Democrat on the ballot than to beat Lee, 78% of them still voted for McMullin. The poll found 64% of independents sided with McMullin. But losing those Republicans left his coalition well short of where it needed to be.
“We had the most competitive senate race we’ve had in 50 years, volunteers were energized, small donations came in and people were excited and it lifted moderate candidates down the ballot,” he told me. “Of course, I would have preferred to see Evan win. But for the first time in 50 years, moderate voters felt like their voices mattered in this election, and that counts for something.”
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