Lindell calls for self-funded recount after 11-point loss in Minnesota governor’s primary

MyPillow Founder Pours Private Money Into Minnesota Primary Recount After Narrow-By-Comparison Defeat

Provpnadvice.com – Mike Lindell, the entrepreneur best known for building the MyPillow sleep-products empire, has committed his own funds to a full hand recount and audit of Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary — a contest he lost by approximately 11 percentage points. The move, announced in a written statement on Wednesday, places Lindell squarely back at the center of a fight over how American ballots are tallied, counted, and ultimately trusted.

The recount is not a routine administrative request. Lindell is paying out of pocket for what he frames as a necessary correction to what his campaign team identified as anomalies during election-night reporting. His statement pointed to several specific problems: vote totals that appeared to decrease as the night progressed, suspiciously synchronized numbers across all seven Republican candidates in the race, and counties that reported receiving more ballots than had actually been cast. Each of these claims, if borne out, would represent a significant breakdown in the tabulation process.

Observers, Audits, and the Question of Electronic Tabulation

Lindell said the recount will feature “designated observers stationed throughout the hand-counting process,” a measure intended to give his side real-time visibility into how paper ballots are sorted and tallied by hand rather than by machine. He framed the exercise in terms far broader than a single state’s primary result.

“Even if this recount and audit does not overturn my election for governor of Minnesota, I believe this is the gateway to getting rid of these electronic voting machines.”

He went further, asserting that 132 countries have already moved away from the electronic tabulation systems used in many American jurisdictions.

“The United States should be setting the standard for elections, instead we are the worst in the world,” he said.

The Minnesota secretary of state’s office, which oversees the state’s election administration, declined to comment on the audit request. Whether the recount will alter the certified outcome of the primary remains an open question, though the margin Lindell faces makes a full reversal statistically unlikely absent a major procedural finding.

Trump’s Endorsement Could Not Save the Ticket

The primary carried unusual national attention because President Donald Trump personally endorsed Lindell in the final hours before polls closed. On Truth Social, the president wrote that Lindell deserved a “BIG WIN IN MINNESOTA.” The endorsement, combined with Lindell’s long-running public disputes over election integrity, made the race a de facto referendum on the former president’s continued influence over Republican primary politics.

That influence did not translate into victory. According to Decision Desk HQ, Lindell finished roughly 11 points behind Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth (R), who will now carry the Republican nomination into the general election. Demuth’s fall opponent will be incumbent Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who is running to succeed Democratic Governor Tim Walz as he departs office. The matchup positions Minnesota as one of the most closely watched Senate races of the cycle.

In the immediate aftermath of the primary results, Lindell declined to concede. He pointed to what he described as unresolved vote totals and insisted the race was not over until every ballot was accounted for.

“There’s 265,000 votes left to count. I’m down by 18,000 now. I’m not going to give up this race until the votes are counted. That’s nonsense.”

That refusal to accept the preliminary tally set the stage for the Wednesday announcement of the privately funded recount and audit.

The Smartmatic Defamation Case and a Push for Reconsideration

On the same day, Lindell’s legal team filed a letter with a federal judge in Minneapolis asking for a new ruling in his ongoing defamation lawsuit against Smartmatic, the electronic voting-machine company that provides tabulation services to Los Angeles County. Lindell argues the court should revisit its earlier decision now that the president, in July, “declassified evidence” against voting-machine companies — a characterization Lindell uses to suggest newly available documents could alter the legal landscape.

In June 2025, a Minnesota federal judge had ruled that Lindell defamed Smartmatic through false statements about the company’s machines. The underlying dispute traces back to Lindell’s public criticism of the 2020 presidential election results in Los Angeles County, a jurisdiction where former President Joe Biden won approximately 71 percent of the vote against Trump. Lindell’s claims about irregularities in that county’s tabulation became the factual basis for Smartmatic’s defamation suit, and the judge’s ruling effectively closed that chapter — at least until the new letter prompts a reconsideration.

Together, the recount funding and the litigation push illustrate how Lindell continues to couple electoral contests with a broader campaign against electronic voting infrastructure. Whether Minnesota’s primary outcome changes, whether a federal judge revisits the Smartmatic ruling, or whether the recount simply confirms the existing margin, the episode underscores a persistent tension in American election administration: the gap between public confidence in machine-assisted tabulation and the growing constituency demanding paper-based verification at every level of the ballot.