Evan McMullin, #NeverTrump 3rd-Party Candidate, Stuck With Random VP on Ballots: Report

WASHINGTON, DC — Evan McMullin is already a huge longshot to win the presidency as the conservative alternative to Donald Trump, but a mistake his campaign made certainly isn't helping: He reportedly has accidentally locked in a vice-presidential pick he didn't intend to keep.

McMullin, who launched his campaign last month, is barely registering in the polls with just 1 percent of the vote, putting him in fifth place behind both the Libertarian and Green Party candidates. Now, in at least eight of the nine states where has managed to qualify to even appear on the presidential ballot, he'll have Nathan Johnson as his vice presidential nominee — even though he actually hasn't chosen his running mate yet, one report states, noting that it's not clear who Johnson is.

Although McMullin is unlikely to make a serious run for the presidency, in an election year where many people are looking for an alternative to Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, independent candidates have a lot of power to siphon votes and swing the election toward one candidate or the other — in McMullin's case, away from Trump and toward Clinton. However, this mess-up could provide ammunition to McMullin's critics and dampen any enthusiasm from his supporters for a respectable conservative candidate to at least assert their voting power.

Johnson was only meant to be a placeholder on filing papers until McMullin choose his real running mate, but in eight states, McMullin won't be able to pull Johnson's name off when he finds a replacement, Politico reported.

McMullin already has a low public profile as a former House Republican leadership staffer and a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, working almost entirely behind the scenes and rarely appearing on camera. He has his work cut out for him simply getting on most of the state ballots and has already missed the deadline in several states like California and Texas.

McMullin will not be able to change his VP nominee in the states of Louisiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Arkansas, Idaho, Utah, Virginia and South Carolina. The one state where he could make the change is Colorado, but he only has until Friday, according to the report.

Image via the official Twitter account of Evan McMullin