Donald Trump has endorsed MyPillow founder Mike Lindell for governor of Minnesota, a state where Lindell is currently losing by 17 points and which he may not legally qualify to run in. This is a real thing that is happening in American politics in the year 2026.
The Endorsement Nobody Was Asking For
On Wednesday, Trump took to Truth Social to declare Mike Lindell "one of America's greatest and most hard working Patriots," a sentence that should be read slowly and out loud to really absorb it. He credited Lindell with having "sacrificed" more than almost anyone else "in fighting for our country, especially when it comes to Election Integrity" and promised that Lindell would "MAKE MINNESOTA GREAT AGAIN."
According to The Guardian, early voting in the August 11 Republican primary is already underway. Trump's blessing lands like a bouquet of dandelions at a funeral: technically it's something, but it is not going to help with the underlying problem.
The underlying problem is that Mike Lindell is running for governor of a state he has a complicated residential relationship with, against a Democratic incumbent-in-waiting who is currently beating him by seventeen points.
The Polling Is a Disaster, In Case That Wasn't Clear
A Star Tribune/KARE 11/Hubbard School Minnesota poll conducted in June found Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar leading Lindell 53% to 36% in a hypothetical general election matchup. Eleven percent were undecided, which means more Minnesotans are genuinely unsure what they think than are actively choosing the pillow man.
The Guardian reports this is actually Klobuchar's strongest showing against any of the Republican contenders tested. She leads the party-endorsed candidate Kendall Qualls 48% to 37%, and House Speaker Lisa Demuth 48% to 40%. So the Republican field is weak across the board, but Lindell is in a special category of weak all his own.
Klobuchar entered the race in January and is the clear frontrunner on the Democratic side. The governor's seat is open because Tim Walz, who you might remember as Kamala Harris's running mate, chose not to seek a third term. In 2022, Walz won re-election by nearly eight points. The Republicans are trying to flip a seat that has been trending against them, and their most famous candidate is the guy from the pillow commercials.
The Small Matter of Whether He Actually Lives There
Here is where it gets genuinely weird, which is saying something given everything that came before it. The Guardian reports that Lindell, despite being born in Minnesota and building MyPillow into a manufacturing company there, spent several years registered to vote in Texas. Last year, he described himself in a court filing as "a Texas citizen."
He has since told reporters he re-established Minnesota residency and insists he will meet the state's requirement that gubernatorial candidates live in Minnesota for at least a year before the general election. The general election is November 3. You can do the math on when he would have needed to move back.
To be clear: the man running to lead Minnesota was, by his own legal admission, a Texas citizen. He is now asking Minnesota voters to make him their governor. Trump, who is not from any of the states whose governors he endorses, apparently sees no issue with any of this.
Who Is Actually In This Primary
The Republican primary ballot includes Kendall Qualls, who won the party's official endorsement back in May, along with House Speaker Lisa Demuth, 2022 nominee Scott Jensen, and state representative Peggy Bennett. These are people who have been doing the actual work of running, organizing, and earning support within the party structure.
Then Trump walks in and endorses the MyPillow guy, who is trailing all of them against Klobuchar and is trailing the residency requirement in real time. The party-endorsed candidate, Qualls, is watching the former president torch the primary process in favor of someone whose main qualification is spending years on television promoting false claims about an election that was not stolen.
That is what Trump specifically praised Lindell for, by the way. Not his business record. Not any policy position. His years of promoting discredited election fraud claims. That is the resume line that gets you a Trump endorsement in 2026.
The Dingo Take
Let's be honest about what this endorsement is and is not. It is not a strategic calculation aimed at winning a governor's race. Lindell is down 17 points to Klobuchar, trails even the more competitive Republicans in hypothetical matchups, and has a residency situation that a first-year law student could pick apart. Nobody looked at this race and said, "You know what would flip Minnesota? The pillow guy."
What this is, is loyalty theater. Trump rewards the people who went furthest out on the limb for him, facts and consequences be damned. Lindell spent years and reportedly millions of his own money promoting the claim that the 2020 election was stolen, a claim that has been rejected by courts, election officials, and basic arithmetic. In Trump's world, that kind of commitment deserves a return. So here we are.
The real victims of this endorsement, if you want to call them that, are the Republicans who actually put in the work. Kendall Qualls won the party endorsement through the normal process. Lisa Demuth holds real elected office. And now the most famous person in their primary is a man whose main credential is believing things that are not true, and whose address was, until recently, apparently somewhere in Texas. Minnesota deserves better. So does Minnesota's pillow industry, frankly.
