On Tuesday night, the MyPillow founder lost his own race for Minnesota governor and pointed the finger at the ballots that beat him.
State House Speaker Lisa Demuth defeated Lindell by a double-digit margin in the Republican primary. Lindell, who built a national profile pushing false claims that voting machines flipped the 2020 election from Donald Trump to Joe Biden, refused to concede once the race was called.
The math was not close
The Associated Press called the contest for Demuth at 11:26 p.m. ET, with Demuth holding 43.6% of the vote to Lindell’s 32.3% once 93% of ballots were counted. Kendall Qualls, a former healthcare executive, took third with 21.4 percent. Later tallies pushed Demuth’s margin past 10 points, putting the race well outside recount territory.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar cruised to the Democratic nomination the same night, taking close to 90% of the vote against no serious opposition. She now heads into the general election as the heavy favorite in a state Republicans have not won at the top of the ticket since Tim Pawlenty left office in 2011.
Lindell would not accept the result
Rather than concede, Lindell told reporters at his election night party that people on his team had spotted what he called a couple of anomalies in the vote tally. Asked about the Associated Press call, he responded with a question of his own: ‘Why would I listen to the AP?’
The remark echoed the language Lindell used for years to challenge the 2020 presidential results, a campaign that made him one of the most recognizable faces of the election denial movement. Pre-election polling had shown Lindell narrowly ahead, and analysts noted that Minnesota’s recent primaries have repeatedly diverged from survey predictions, a pattern that cuts against any claim of a rigged outcome specific to Lindell.
Trump’s endorsement did not travel far
Trump backed Lindell about a month before the primary, writing on Truth Social that his ally deserved a big win and had sacrificed more than anyone in fighting for fair elections. The endorsement did not translate into the state party’s official support. Minnesota Republicans handed that nod to Qualls at their convention in June, leaving Lindell to run without the organizational backing that typically comes with it.
The loss adds Lindell to a growing tally of Trump-endorsed candidates who have fallen short in 2026 primaries, seven by one recent count. This includes Georgia lieutenant governor Burt Jones, who lost to healthcare executive Rick Jackson by roughly five points weeks earlier. The trend has become a talking point for critics questioning how much sway a presidential endorsement still carries in contested primaries.
Legal bills piled up as the campaign ran
Lindell entered the race already carrying substantial legal debt. A federal jury awarded a former Dominion Voting Systems director $2.3 million. The jury found that Lindell had defamed him. A judge separately ruled that Lindell defamed Smartmatic over similar false claims, with damages still to be determined. Dominion, now operating under new ownership as Liberty Vote Holdings, dropped its $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Lindell in June. The terms of the resolution were not made public.
Smartmatic’s case has proven harder to close. Court filings show Lindell has yet to pay $56,369 in sanctions the company won years ago. The debt grew to more than $95,000 once civil contempt penalties were added for missing an April payment deadline. Separately, a January ruling ordered Lindell to pay DHL $780,000 over a contract dispute, and he told the Associated Press back in 2023 that he was out of money.
Residency questions and a pillow giveaway trailed the campaign
Legal trouble was not confined to the defamation cases. The Minnesota Republican Party publicly questioned whether Lindell met the state’s residency requirement for governor after he acknowledged living in Texas as recently as last year, arguing he moved back before the one-year deadline tied to the November general election. A judge also found probable cause last week that Lindell violated campaign finance law by distributing pillows branded with his campaign name at a July Fourth parade.
Lindell further alienated parts of his own base last month when he floated an immigration proposal offering six months of amnesty to undocumented immigrants seeking work visas. The backlash from MAGA-aligned voters was swift enough that he reversed the position within days, a reversal that did little to settle doubts about his message heading into the vote.
What comes next
Demuth now advances to face Klobuchar in November for the seat Gov. Tim Walz is vacating after deciding not to seek a third term. Political handicappers rate Minnesota as a steep climb for Republicans given Klobuchar’s statewide profile and the state’s recent voting history.
For Lindell, the defeat closes out a campaign that remained under the financial and legal shadow of his election claims. He spent the race arguing that he was best positioned to defend future elections from fraud.
The irony was not lost on election law observers who tracked his campaign. A man who spent years insisting compromised machines stole a presidential election could not accept a governor’s race he lost by more than 10 points in his own state. The election used a voting system that Minnesota Republicans and Democrats helped design.
No court filing, campaign statement or independent tally has surfaced to support Lindell’s anomaly claim, and the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office has not announced any review of Tuesday’s results.
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