--- title: Evan McMullin: Former Republican Policy Guru Launches Bid description: A CIA veteran and former chief policy director for the House Republican Conference has launched an independent bid for president. canonical: https://time.com/4443725/evan-mcmullin-campaign-launch/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-08T19:15:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T23:50:31.817Z article:section: Politics og:title: Former GOP Policy Guru Launches Independent Presidential Bid og:description: "I can no longer stand on the sidelines." og:url: https://time.com/4443725/evan-mcmullin-campaign-launch/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt019c106e6f106791/6988a19b656a3f5b25bccaa4/evan-mcmullin-for-president.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1488 og:image:height: 837 og:image:alt: evan-mcmullin-for-president og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Former GOP Policy Guru Launches Independent Presidential Bid twitter:description: "I can no longer stand on the sidelines." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt019c106e6f106791/6988a19b656a3f5b25bccaa4/evan-mcmullin-for-president.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Former Republican Policy Guru Launches Independent Presidential Bid > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Aug 8, 2016 7:15 PM UTC  Evan McMullin for President by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Aug 8, 2016 7:15 PM UTC A CIA veteran and [former chief policy director](http://time.com/4443459/evan-mcmullin-president) for the House Republican Conference has launched an independent bid for president. [In a letter on his newly launched campaign website](https://www.evanmcmullin.com/blog), Evan McMullin states that he believes Americans need an alternative to the Democratic and Republican nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. “With the stakes so high for our nation and at this late stage in the process, I can no longer stand on the sidelines,” McMullin wrote. On an issues section of his website, McMullin describes a fairly conventional Republican platform without much detail, including supporting the military, simplifying the tax code, ending the Common Core education standards, reforming or replacing Obamacare and expanding domestic oil and gas production. McMullin appears to side with Establishment Republican thinking over Trump on immigration, trade and foreign policy. His platform breaks with Trump, who has called immigration reform “amnesty,” by calling for a [“path to legal residence and in some cases citizenship”](https://www.evanmcmullin.com/immigration) for “law-abiding people” after the “borders are secure.” Like Trump, McMullin calls for negotiating “stronger trade deals” but argues that [“closing doors to trade opportunities won’t bring back jobs.”](https://www.evanmcmullin.com/trade) And he argues in favor of American global leadership, saying that [“withdrawing from the world makes us less safe, not more.”](https://www.evanmcmullin.com/americas%5Frole%5Fin%5Fthe%5Fworld) McMullin, who had just [135 followers](https://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/anti-trump-republican-launching-independent-presidential-bid?utm%5Fterm=.merV8JaMb#.hoRGJXREN) on Twitter earlier Monday, has seen that grow to nearly 20,000. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4443725/evan-mcmullin-campaign-launch/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4443725/evan-mcmullin-campaign-launch/"},"headline":"Former Republican Policy Guru Launches Independent Presidential Bid","datePublished":"2016-08-08T19:15:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T23:50:31.817Z","description":"'I can no longer stand on the sidelines'","url":"https://time.com/4443725/evan-mcmullin-campaign-launch/","keywords":["Hillary Clinton","Election 2016","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt019c106e6f106791/6988a19b656a3f5b25bccaa4/evan-mcmullin-for-president.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt019c106e6f106791/6988a19b656a3f5b25bccaa4/evan-mcmullin-for-president.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"evan-mcmullin-for-president","caption":"","creditText":"Evan McMullin for President","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4443725/evan-mcmullin-campaign-launch/","name":"Former Republican Policy Guru Launches Independent Presidential Bid"}}]}] ```