In Your Dreams, Mike Lindell

By Jim Geraghty

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

 

With 100 percent of precincts reporting in the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary, state House Speaker Lisa Demuth has 179,545 votes, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has 134,184 votes. That is a gap of 45,361 votes. You are not going to find 45,361 votes unattended in a county courier truck, or any other such shenanigans.

 

At 9 a.m., LindellTV, the candidate’s own video channel, reported that Demuth had won and Lindell had finished second.

 

Yet, as of this writing, Lindell has not conceded to Demuth.

 

Last night, he told reporters:

 

I’m all for any election that’s done with paper ballots, hand-counted, and we get rid of these computers in our election. We’re like a third-world country. Nobody — 132 countries don’t have computers. You guys can sit there and go, ‘oh, its all about other cheating, there’s always cheating in elections, like in Minnesota here.’ Eight people can vote, I can vouch for eight people — I didn’t even have to show my ID today, when I went to vote. But the problem is, there was no mathematical, or deviations tonight. But there was, and it came right at the end. It came about a half hour ago, that this 36,000 vote — and then, 6,000 for me. They inclined — if you just say, people voted the same day of, as early voting, at least it was like this [Lindell makes a level hand gesture]… all of a sudden, it went like this for me [makes a declining hand gesture], being on the day of, and then it went WHOOSH [Lindell makes a dramatically inclining hand gesture] and it went straight up for her. It just doesn’t make sense, you guys.

 

Dude . . . you lost by more than 45,000 votes.

 

It is not exactly shocking news to declare that Mike Lindell is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and sees election-rigging conspiracies everywhere he goes. But it is worth keeping in mind that with perfectly good Republican candidates who are more popular among Minnesota Republicans and Minnesotans as a whole available, President Trump chose to endorse Lindell. For a guy who talks about winning so much, Trump doesn’t really care that much about winning.

 

Anyone who claims to care about the cause of election integrity harms that cause by associating with Lindell. As it has been abundantly proven, election fraud occurs: People request absentee ballots under false names, people fill out absentee ballots for other people without informing them, people vote absentee and in-person in the same election, people fill out fictitious names on voter registration applications, and people cast ballots despite being ineligible as convicted felons. Generally these cases — proven in a court of law — involve a small number of ballots. But any fraudulent vote dilutes the legitimate votes of people like you and me.

 

Lindell, however, is about one step away from claiming the Illuminati, aliens, Elvis, and Bigfoot hacked the election. He is, unwittingly, the greatest ally the election system status quo could ever want.