SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Two months after he jumped into the presidential race as a political unknown on the fringe, independent candidate Evan McMullin is surging in the polls in Utah and drawing large crowds at rallies as he becomes the conduit for conservative voters fed up with Republican Donald Trump's crudeness and antics. The Republican stronghold of Utah is suddenly a toss-up state amid widespread rejection of Trump, with polls showing McMullin closing in on the Republican nominee and Democrat Hillary Clinton. Though McMullin is only on the ballot in 11 states, there's even talk of the 40-year-old becoming president in a wild, exceedingly unlikely scenario in which neither Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton gets enough electoral votes and Congress is left to decide. Cann, now a Utah State University political scientist, remembers McMullin being an ambitious young man with a high motor who was very excited about starting his career in the CIA, taking very seriously all the agency rules. Handicapping this year's race, Cann said McMullin has seized the opportunity created by the unpopularity of Trump and Clinton by persuading voters he's a better option than Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, whose policies don't quite jibe with Utah's culture. Matthew Burbank, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, predicts Trump will narrowly win the state, making McMullin mainly an interesting historical footnote similar to Ross Perot's 1992 showing in Utah when he finished second to George H.W.