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0000017c-7f7e-d4f8-a77d-fffffe370000Utah Public Radio is dedicated to bring you in-depth political stories during this election year so you can cast an informed vote. Here is a compilation of our local news coverage for you to refer back to, to study and to share with others.

Will McMullin's Utah Campaign Strategy Pay Off?

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UPR's Evan Hall spoke with Joel Searby, chief strategist and campaign manager for Evan McMullin.

“What is the atmosphere down at the McMullin campaign headquarters right now?” -Evan“Well the atmosphere is absolutely electric. The supporters that are here are so excited to be here in person. We have people here from all over the country, who have flown in, driven in, from all over the place to be here because they’ve been so excited about what’s going on. And our supporters have been here because they believe in what we are doing. We are excited. This thing is very, very tight right now, and we feel very good about where we are at in Utah.” -Joel

“The campaign has taken a kind of unusual strategy in that it focused heavily on Utah, obviously. Have you seen that paying off?” -Evan

“Yeah, yeah. Well obviously we made a decision a couple weeks ago that our best chance at not only winning some electoral votes, but also our long-shot strategy that we have acknowledged from the beginning which was to block them both and send this to the House. Our best chance was Utah. And so we have been putting a lot of resources here, our people are here, we’ve been on the ground for many, many weeks and months. Working folks, we’ve had door knockers, phone calls, and a massive social media effort. We’ve got the most legitimate, most comprehensive ground game of any presidential campaign in Utah. And we believe that if we prevail tonight, that’s going to be the difference maker. That we focused here, we put our resources here, we made it happen.” -Joel

“Mr. McMullin obviously saying that there needs to be kind of a renewed conservative movement in the United States, that the GOP needs to, obviously needs to change in order to accommodate that or something has to happen. Have you found supporters really responding to that call for a renewed sense of conservatism in the U.S.?” -Evan

“Yeah, I think that is exactly what is resonating is a call for a new generation of leadership in this country, and civic engagement and yes a new conservative movement. And what does that mean? That’s built on principles of equality and of liberty and it really is harkening back to what we were founded on, but also with a vision for the future that’s inclusive, that includes people from all races and religions and backgrounds and a conservative movement that is viable as an electoral vehicle for a long time to come and speaks those truths to people. That’s really resonating, there’s a lot of people who didn’t feel that they had a home as a conservative because of Donald Trump’s brand of Republicanism, and we feel that we have given a place for those people to call home. In fact, this whole idea of being home that Mike Pence has tried to sell, has failed in many ways for many people and they’ve said ‘We are already home in our conservative principles with Evan McMullin’”-Joel

“And one final question, obviously during the caucuses both major party candidates did pretty poorly here in the state of Utah. What do you see tonight’s result being for the beehive state?” -Evan

“Well we think it’s very close. We are very optimistic that our efforts here have made a difference. We won’t know until the polls close and the votes are tallied. But we feel very good about the effort we made and that it could be a very historic night.” -Joel