President Donald Trump has endorsed MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell for Minnesota governor, giving his “complete and total endorsement” to the longtime Trump ally and election conspiracy theorist in a crowded Republican primary.
Trump posted his endorsement on Truth Social on Wednesday, praising Lindell as “one of America’s greatest and most hard working Patriots” and referring to him as “the ‘Pillow Man.'” In his post, Trump wrote that Lindell “will be SPECTACULAR” and declared that he “truly loves Minnesota, as do I, and wants to bring it back from oblivion and embarrassment.”
The endorsement comes just days before Minnesota’s August 11 primary and nearly a year after Trump first expressed support for Lindell’s gubernatorial ambitions. In December, Trump said Lindell “deserves to be governor of Minnesota” when Lindell officially announced his candidacy at his MyPillow factory in Shakopee.
Lindell has been one of Trump’s most visible and vocal supporters in recent years, repeatedly amplifying the former president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by Joe Biden. Lindell established his national profile as the “MyPillow Guy” through decades of television advertising campaigns. He first met Trump during the 2016 campaign and served as a warm-up speaker at numerous Trump rallies, while also co-chairing Trump’s Minnesota campaign in 2016.
The endorsement adds to an already competitive Republican primary in Minnesota. Recent polling shows Lindell leading the Republican field with 27 percent support among GOP primary voters, ahead of House Speaker Lisa Demuth at 22 percent and businessman Kendall Qualls, who earned the state party’s endorsement, at 17 percent. Early voting is already underway.
Lindell’s campaign has focused on attacking the state’s Democratic leadership over a major welfare fraud scandal. Federal prosecutors have alleged that dozens of people stole hundreds of millions of dollars from pandemic-era welfare programs. Lindell has made rooting out fraud a centerpiece of his platform, along with his longstanding focus on eliminating voting machines in favor of hand-counted paper ballots. In interviews, he has said voting machines “need to be melted down… and turned into prison bars.”
Lindell’s path to the GOP nomination has been complicated by legal challenges stemming from his election-related claims. He was ordered to pay 2.3 million dollars in damages to Eric Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems executive, after a jury found he defamed him. A federal judge also found that Lindell defamed Smartmatic, another voting technology company, though damages have yet to be determined. Last month, Lindell settled a 1.3 billion dollar defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, now operating as Liberty Vote, reaching a confidential settlement agreement that ended a five-year legal battle.
Trump has hammered outgoing Democratic Governor Tim Walz, the 2024 vice presidential nominee, as incompetent and blamed his administration for allowing fraud in federal spending on childcare. Trump has also employed inflammatory rhetoric targeting Minnesota’s Somali immigrant population in connection with the alleged fraud, while Walz has disputed the characterization.
The Republican primary field is crowded, with seven candidates competing for the nomination. Beyond Lindell, Demuth, and Qualls, other candidates include state Rep. Raul Estrada, former health executive John Krhin, and two others with lower profiles.
The winner of the Republican primary will face the Democratic nominee in the general election. That race has evolved dramatically in recent weeks. Governor Walz initially announced he would seek an unprecedented third consecutive four-year term but withdrew from his reelection campaign in June. U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, a popular four-term incumbent, subsequently announced a gubernatorial campaign and has quickly become the presumptive Democratic nominee, consolidating party support behind her candidacy.
Republicans have not won a statewide election in Minnesota since 2006, though the state has surprised political observers in the past. Minnesota voters elected former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura as governor in 1998 and elected home improvement company owner Rudy Boschwitz to the U.S. Senate in 1978, demonstrating a history of supporting unconventional candidates.
Lindell has maintained that he deserves the GOP nomination despite his third-place finish at the Minnesota Republican Party’s state convention in May, where he came in behind Qualls, who secured the official party endorsement. Lindell declined to commit to respecting the party endorsement, deciding instead to continue campaigning into the primary.