Independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin has scheduled a rally Boise on Saturday, from 2-3 p.m. at the Boise High School auditorium, 1010 W. Washington St. McMullin, who is offering himself as a conservative alternative to Donald Trump, held overflowing rallies last weekend in Idaho Falls and Rexburg; he’s leading in the latest Utah poll, which the Salt Lake Tribune reported yesterday had McMullin with 31 percent, to 27 percent for Trump and 24 percent for Hillary Clinton in that state.

McMullin, 40, is a Utah native and BYU graduate; he's a former CIA officer and former congressional staffer. “The campaign’s goal is to show America that there is a better choice for president and that the time has come for a new generation of American leadership,” his campaign said in a news release announcing the Boise rally.

No independent has won any state’s electoral votes since George Wallace in 1968, who carried five southern states running on a pro-segregation platform.

McMullin’s candidacy has given rise to speculation about a scenario in which he takes several states’ electoral votes, throwing a close Trump-Clinton race into a deadlock in the electoral college and shifting the decision to the House of Representatives. But McMullin told the Salt Lake newspaper that’s unlikely at this point. “All of the Electoral College projections say [Trump] is going to lose badly," he said. "So we can dispense with the idea that a vote for me is a vote for Hillary Clinton. That is not the case."

McMullin called on voters to “to take a stand on our principles" and vote for him, and after the election, try to create a new conservative movement. He told the Salt Lake newspaper that he plans to spend the bulk of his time between now and Nov. 8 in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado, with stops in Iowa, Virginia and Minnesota. He’s on the ballot in 11 states, including Idaho.