Talk:Evan McMullin 2016 presidential campaign

HQ Location

Every source I've seen has said that the campaign is based out of Utah, not Florida. (Admittedly, I do not recall which city, and I do not currently have the time to look.) Where did this information come from? ALPolitico (talk) 10:05, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

I took that information from his official filings from the FEC. I added the source to the article. His campaign website does not list an address, so I would take the FEC filings to be as official as we can get. Fredsteve3 (talk) 21:44, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Apparently it's opening September 7 (7PM to 10PM). If any Wikipedians can make it, then be sure to take pictures for this article. ^Falling_Gravity 23:38, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Texas PPP polling

The cited source says "less than half a percent (0)". I see there's disagreement about listing that as <.05 or rounding down to 0. The IP pushing zero obviously isn't a fan (use of name calling being indicative) so I doubt there's good faith here, hence I'm apt to reject their assertions. Any other opinions? Chris Troutman (talk) 22:20, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

For what it's worth, three people said they would vote for Evan McMullin in that poll. 96.227.114.222 (talk) 22:22, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

If a candidate receives 0% support in a poll, it is listed as such. This is consistent with how polling is listed in Wikipedia articles as is the case when they do. 96.227.114.222 (talk) 22:21, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

The edit summary should probably be scrubbed per WP:BLP. ^Falling_Gravity 22:52, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

New Nationwide poll

New one with Mcmullin http://echeloninsights.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/post_debate_survey_toplines.pdfGhostmen2 (talk) 10:01, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

Did Orson Scott Card endorse him?

"Right now, I'm planning to write in Evan McMullin, because while I don't agree with him on everything, he comes a lot closer to aiming at the America I want to live in than anybody else." Not that that would help him necessarily.--T. Anthony (talk) 09:40, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Strategy

There's some rah-rah talk on the article about throwing the election into the House of Representatives, but the campaign's main operational strategy (i.e. what they're working towards and spending money on) seems to be to gain enough votes in Utah to deny Trump the state's electoral college votes. (Ideally one or two other red states also, if they can pull it off, but focusing on Utah.) If they succeed, then by far the most likely outcome will be to increase Hillary Clinton's electoral vote advantage, as they must be well aware... AnonMoos (talk) 08:18, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

He has talked about being a potential spoiler for Trump in an interview. ^Falling_Gravity 17:11, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

Does he stand for something? Y'know, have a platform or anything?

Big news today that he's competitive in Utah. That should mean more readers for this article. Shouldn't someone maybe add his policy platform? AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:48, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

There's a lot of info in his own article -- Evan McMullin#Political stances. Should this info be duplicated here? I notice that Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016 doesn't list HC's political views, so maybe this isn't the place. I added a cross-reference in the "Background" section. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 03:07, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

I just took a quick look, and the "political stances" section has at least some platform info referenced from his present presidential campaign. Since it's reasonable to believe he's supported other policies before he ran for president, I'd say this is one of those situations where an editor is justified in duplicating an entire section - and then, of course, when it comes to this article, trimming out anything that isn't specifically from this election campaign. Then again, I think Hillary's campaign article should also contain her campaign's policy platform. Is that not done in this sort of article? In any case, McMullin has so little of value written about him in this article, but he's become newsworthy because of his competitiveness in Utah, so I'd say this article deserves a bit more meat. Just my opinion. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:20, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

And as an aside, I don't see why this article should have a "polls" section. But I'll leave it up to editors with more experience in "presidential campaign" articles to vet that. Certainly when it comes to his sudden competitiveness in Utah, there are now reliable sources on that who provide much more than just numbers. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 15:20, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Adding non-notable endorsements

@JosephFrontroyal: I've already warned you on your talk page about adding non-notable people. If someone isn't notable there's no point adding them and it really looks like partisanship to ignore this point. Do we need to take this to a drama board? Chris Troutman (talk) 05:52, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Troutman, wait ten seconds before snapping. I just saw your message now. It's fixed.

Polls

As AllGloryToTheHypnotoad mentioned above, I don't see the need for such a huge poll section. I can sum the whole thing up in a short paragraph: "Polling nationwide and in most states places McMullin in the 1-2% range. Recent polls in Idaho show McMullin with about 10% of the vote, while recent Utah polls show him with about 30% of the vote; in one Utah poll conducted by Emerson College, he is leading both Clinton and Trump." Looking for consensus before I make this change. Brianga (talk) 20:49, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Removing all the polls except removes data about his surge in Utah. Is the article really that long? ^Falling_Gravity 13:28, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Prose is preferable. If you want to add some information about the rise in Utah, I think that would be fine. But listing poll after poll is ineffective for an article. Brianga (talk) 14:52, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Listing poll after poll is not what Wikipedia is about. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 22:38, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I would argue that it is what Wikipedia is about because we have multiple articles which track and list polls in this election. However, polling on Evan McMullin in those articles is scattered. Gathering all those polls here (which we've been doing) makes them more accessible. ^Falling_Gravity 22:56, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Smear robocalls

Smear robocalls in Utah from a white nationalist have received widespread publicity, actually dominating the news cycle for a couple of days. Should we include? See this article and numerous others. Even though he is a public figure I would like to see consensus here before adding, and I think BLP mandates caution and an overwhelming consensus in such situations. (copying this from the McMullin talk page). Coretheapple (talk) 13:43, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

If it's worded carefully, then yes, it belongs on this page. In a campaign, not every single newsworthy event (ads, attack ads, debates, endorsements) needs to be added to the Wikipedia page. But in this case, since McMullin hasn't had a lot of coverage in the news, this is significant.

However, it isn't appropriate to cover this news if we don't cover the much more important, and much more widespread, news that McMullin is doing very well in Utah. Right now, we cover that fact by citing polls -- but we don't cite any news other than the polls. How are other policitians and the public in Utah reacting to his candidacy? What waves are being made outside of Utah by observers? There's plenty of stuff in newspapers about this. To not cover this, but then cover one random guy's robocalls, would be very unbalanced. The Trump campaign article covers Trump's campaign, not just attacks against him. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 19:04, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes it needs to be proportional, if used at all. Coretheapple (talk) 22:32, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

We need to be very careful with this to avoid a BLP issue. It is probably preferable to mention generally that he has been subject to personal smears without reference to the actual unfounded allegations themselves. Brianga (talk) 13:37, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

I like that idea. I raised this issue preemptively because I figured some drive-by would insert a reference to the smear and we'd have to scramble to deal with it. I think that when you have this kind of situation it's important not to get into the details of smears within the text of an article, if at all, but deal with them without mentioning the smears themselves. Coretheapple (talk) 14:55, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Document the fact of the smears, not their content. Of course, there will be a footnote on the statement about the smears, and interested readers can follow the link and learn their content. But since reputable sources all agree that the content of the smears is itself false, and since the McMullin campaign has not (AFAIK) responded to the specific content of the smears, their false content should not be repeated in this article. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 00:47, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

When I have the time I may put forth an essay on the subject, maybe even a guideline. There is a failed proposal called WP:Smear campaigns, but it's nebulous and I'm not sure what its purpose was. Coretheapple (talk) 16:51, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

@Lawrence King:@Brianga: Have commenced an essay on handling such situations. Feel free to weigh in, add, expand. User:Coretheapple/draft. Coretheapple (talk) 14:59, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Write-In Ballot Access

I'm not seeing in any sources that McMullin has write-in access in Washington, D.C. Of the sources cited, the list of states on his site does not include DC and on the electoral map, you really can't tell. DC is too small to tell if it it's even on that map, never mind if it has the same ballot status as VA or MD. The last list of candidates the DCBOE put out is from 9/23, and does not include EM.

References

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