The WIldcatters’ blog is written by Kirby Goidel (Professor of Mass Communication, Texas A&M University) and Keith Gaddie (President’s Associates Presidential Professor of Political Science, The University of Oklahoma).
There is a lot of talk floating about in cyberspace regarding crazed electoral college scenarios and the potential ‘spoiler’ effect of the Evan McMullin candidacy in Utah.
In case you missed it, McMullin is a 40-year-old Republican and former chief policy director of the House Republican Conference, and also a former CIA operations officer. He qualified for the Utah presidential ballot in August, backed by the group ‘Better for America.’ When major Utah Republicans broke with Trump about ten days ago, McMullin’s Utah numbers climbed to 22 percent, while Trump fell into a statistical tie with Clinton at 26 percent. More recent polling shows a different picture, with McMullin hurting Clinton.
Immediately, the ‘Utah throws the election into the House’ conversation started all over the internet. And it’s a fun conversation, talking about how our constitution actually works. But is this anything new? No, it is not anything new.
Numerous independent candidates have sought the presidency. Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 Bull Moose was the most successful, getting 27 percent of the vote and 88 electors nationwide. The Progressive Bob LaFollette was on the ballot in 47 states in 1924, won 17 percent of the vote and took the electors of his home state of Wisconsin in the Coolidge landslide. Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrats took popular votes in 15 states (sometimes write-ins) and 39 electors. And in 1968 George Wallace’s American Independent Party won votes in every state and took 46 electors. (We direct you to Dave Leip’s outstanding website for the data and maps.)
The situation in Utah, however, resembles the 1960 presidential election in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi on a technical and tactical level. In these states, Democratic leaders found themselves decidedly at odds with the integrationist, progressive nominee Jack Kennedy. The response in these southern states was to disconnect the electors from the nominee. The goal was to potentially throw the election into the House, and negotiate a ‘go slow/no go’ solution to integration.
In Alabama, the state’s eleven electors were chosen individually in the primary. Six were pledged to Kennedy, the other five were unpledged. Georgia freed her electors from being pledged, but the incumbent governor Ernest Vandiver backed JFK.
In Mississippi, a loyalist (Kennedy) slate was slated along with an unpledged slate which was the official Democratic Party slate. In Louisiana both loyalist and unpledged slates were offered, but the unpledged slate was not the official Democratic slate. This is the closest proxy to Utah.
Fourteen unpledged electors were elected from these states. But JFK had won 303 electors (and the election) without these votes. The fourteen unpledged electors instead voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd, leader of Virginia’s Byrd Machine and the man who had originated the massive resistance strategy to fight school desegregation.
So there’s nothing new in Utah. A state party finds itself dealing with a national nominee who is decidedly out of step with their values. They’ve offered up a protest candidate, and he is garnering support. Should he succeed in throwing the election into the House, it would be a modern first for such candidacies.
