Inside the Movement Taking On Both Parties

The 2016 independent presidential campaign of Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn—once dismissed as a long shot—has evolved into a powerful, organized movement reshaping American politics. Mindy Finn, a former top Republican operative who helped build digital political infrastructure for Mitt Romney and Bush campaigns, made a bold pivot by joining McMullin’s ticket as VP nominee, driven by a moral imperative to oppose Donald Trump and restore democratic principles. Despite running with just two months to go and minimal funding, they achieved 22% in Utah—nearly enough to throw the election into the House of Representatives. Now, as Head of Advancement for Forward Party, Finn is scaling the movement’s infrastructure, leveraging her experience in civic tech and data tools through Citizen Data to empower a new generation of nonpartisan candidates. With 26 Forward-aligned candidates running for Utah’s state legislature and rising independent voter numbers (now 49% per Gallup), the movement is gaining unprecedented momentum. Finn and host Andrew Yang highlight a new wave of crossover candidates—Mike Duggan in Michigan, Hugh Lytle in Arizona, Seth Bodnar in Montana—whose success could shift the balance of power in Congress and even the presidency. The episode argues that the two-party system’s collapse is not just inevitable but already underway, and that the next era of American politics will be defined by coalition-building, innovation, and a return to principle over polarization.