Donald Trump’s endorsement was supposed to give Mike Lindell a serious boost. Instead, it wasn’t enough to get the MyPillow founder across the finish line.
Lindell is projected to lose Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary to Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, dealing a major blow to one of Trump’s most vocal allies, and to Trump himself.
Lindell built his political profile almost entirely around Trump and the former president’s false claims that widespread fraud stole the 2020 election. That crusade turned him into a prominent election conspiracy theorist, made him the target of costly defamation lawsuits and, ultimately, earned him Trump’s enthusiastic backing.
Trump was still pushing for Lindell on Tuesday, declaring on Truth Social that “nobody has worked harder” in the fight for what he calls election integrity.
It didn’t work.
The defeat is particularly embarrassing for Trump, who routinely touts the power of his endorsements and has made loyalty to him a central feature of Republican politics.
Lindell, predictably, isn’t conceding.
And Minnesota Republicans had been signaling for weeks that Trump’s endorsement wasn’t going to settle the matter.
The state Republican Party had backed health care executive Kendall Qualls instead, making it clear that party leaders had serious doubts about Lindell’s ability to win a general election.
Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Alex Plechash said Republicans were caught off guard when Trump endorsed Lindell in July.
“We strongly support the President and his agenda, but Minnesota Republicans must choose the candidate best positioned to defeat Amy Klobuchar,” Plechash said.
Plechash then unloaded on Lindell’s baggage, citing delinquent property taxes, financial problems, questions about his electability and concerns surrounding his running mate, Phillip Parrish.
And then came the residency issue.
Just last week, Plechash questioned whether Lindell was even eligible to run, pointing to evidence that he had been living in Texas. Minnesota requires gubernatorial candidates to have lived in the state for at least a year before Election Day.
Lindell responded by providing paystubs to a local television station showing that he had been working and paying taxes in Minnesota since August 2025, apparently satisfying the residency requirement.
But Lindell clearly believes the attacks were politically motivated — and he blamed Trump’s endorsement for making him a target.
“I don’t know why Alex Plechash, or whatever his last name is, and what he has against me,” Lindell told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. “But ever since I got Donald Trump, the president’s endorsement, he has viciously attacked.”
There’s the irony: Lindell went into the race with the most powerful endorsement in the Republican Party. He still lost.
