How McMullin hopes to make a Never Trump miracle

But McMullin’s memo still sees a route to victory for the candidate: Do well enough, in enough states, to deny Clinton or Trump the 270 electoral college votes needed to win, and then prevail via support from the U.S. House of Representatives. If nobody hits 270, the House would elect the next president from the three candidates with the most popular votes.

McMullin would have to dramatically improve his standing to make the top three, and the last time the House picked the president it was John Quincy Adams 192 years ago. But the McMullin campaign’s memo uses that scenario to make the viability case to donors. It was also sent to prominent Republicans operatives in a bid for their support.

McMullin is only on the ballot thus far in ten states, but the memo lays out how he intends to make his mark nationwide: a write-in campaign of epic proportions. Though the campaign acknowledges no precedent for national write-in success, it points to several examples of candidates who’ve rode write-in support to victory, including Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina in 1954 and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in 2010.