Ian Tuttle of National Review Online profiles David Evan McMullin, the conservative whose longshot campaign has a remote chance of throwing the 2016 presidential race into turmoil.

… [I]f McMullin wins Utah and becomes the first third-party candidate to win electoral votes in 48 years, and if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the two major-party nominees, split the other 532, no candidate would achieve the requisite 270 votes in the Electoral College, at which point, the campaign would turn to lobbying the House of Representatives, which would be tasked with selecting the next commander-in-chief. This, at least, is the theory.

McMullin is doing his part to make it reality. In mid October, polls suddenly showed a tight, three-way contest in a state that Republicans have not lost since 1964, with McMullin either in the lead or just behind Trump. That state of play appears to be holding. In case there was any doubt that the Trump campaign is concerned, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Lou Dobbs all spent time last week attacking McMullin (Dobbs, indulging in a refreshingly honest moment of unveiled bigotry, suggested McMullin was part of a “Mormon Mafia”), and on Wednesday, Mike Pence flew in for a rally in Salt Lake City.

Once again, this is Utah we’re talking about.

Under normal circumstances, Evan McMullin would not be a likely presidential candidate. After graduating from BYU in 2001, he served for a decade in the CIA, including in clandestine operations overseas. In 2011, having obtained a MBA from Penn’s Wharton School of Business (perhaps you’ve heard of it?), he joined the investment-banking division at Goldman Sachs. Two years later, he became a senior adviser on national security for the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he served for a term before becoming the House Republican Conference’s chief policy director, a position from which he resigned in August. An impressive résumé, but not the sort that lays the groundwork for a plausible presidential run, which involves things like national name recognition, seven-figure fundraising, and rhetorical discipline, usually honed by long hours on the trail, campaigning for steadily loftier offices.

Of course, by these and the many other time-honored criteria, Donald Trump would not be an obvious presidential contender, either. But it turns out that, when you get Donald Trump, you also get Evan McMullin.