Former independent Presidential ticket Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn are together again, this time launching an organization they say will work to resist Donald Trump’s agenda from the right.
The organization, Stand Up Republic, a 501(c)(4) political non-profit, launched at midnight on Wednesday, and bills itself as a leader in organizing a grassroots, conservative opposition to the Trump Administration’s agenda.
Their goal, the pair says, is to “stand up in defense of the fundamental principles that have made this country the true home of liberty and a source of hope for many around the world.” They hope to align with a number of anti-Trump groups, on both the right and the left.
A video, released in concert with the site’s launch, says the group will focus, initially, on Donald Trump’s ties to Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin, something Evan McMullin, a former CIA operative, has been focusing on since Trump’s win.
“Our goals are to grow a grassroots movement that will be able to exert influence over both the president and members of Congress,” McMullin told the Washington Examiner. “Vladimir Putin is carrying out a campaign to subvert democracies across Europe, and here. We’re standing up to that.”
After the election, Trump called McMullin and Finn “losers.”
Part of the group’s strategy appears to be angering Trump in the hopes that the President will Tweet about Stand Up Republic; the ad is slated for limited runs in New York and DC, specifically airing during MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” which Trump is known to watch.
The McMullin-Finn ticket, an alternative for Republicans who did not want to vote for Trump, earned less than 3% of the vote nationwide, but performed well in several key states, including Utah, where it received 21% of the vote. DC insiders have said that this is good news for McMullin, if he wants to run for statewide office there. Sen. Orrin Hatch is expected to retire, leaving an open Republican seat.
For now, though, they’ll be working to marshal a more nationally focused movement. “We are conservatives who have concerns about this administration taking this country further away from liberty,” Mindy Finn told the Examiner. “A huge number of people on the right share those concerns—and they’re valid concern—and we believe someone needs to stand up for them. We need to do that in a constructive way.