Pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell files to run for Minnesota governor in 2026
By Marshall Cohen, CNN
(CNN) — Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO and right-wing conspiracy theorist, has filed paperwork to run for governor of Minnesota next year.
Lindell, who many Americans recognize from appearing in his MyPillow ads, is a notorious 2020 election denier and supported Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results that year.
He has championed the lie that voting machines flipped millions of votes from Trump to Joe Biden and bankrolled a “cyber symposium” to promote his false conspiracy theories. He was also linked to an allegedly criminal scheme to breach election systems in Colorado in an attempt to prove mass fraud.
If Lindell runs and secures the Republican nomination, he would face off against incumbent Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 2024, who announced in September that he is running for a third term.
Lindell’s path to the Republican nomination is far from guaranteed. There are already other prominent GOP candidates vying to challenge Walz next year, including the party’s 2022 nominee and the current state House speaker.
Lindell is still facing defamation lawsuits from Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic – two of the voting technology companies that he falsely accused of manipulating the 2020 outcome. A federal judge recently ruled that he defamed Smartmatic, but a jury will decide potential damages.
Lindell denies wrongdoing in the Colorado breach and the defamation suits.
CNN has reached out to contacts for Lindell seeking comment.
Earlier this year, a federal jury found Lindell liable for defaming a former Dominion executive, and ordered Lindell to pay about $2.3 million in damages. Despite these legal troubles, Lindell still regularly promotes false conspiracy theories about the 2020 results on his social media platforms.
Some Democrats instantly slammed Lindell’s potential candidacy.
“Mike Lindell is the latest extreme, out of touch candidate to jump into what is becoming a more chaotic and dangerous race to the far-right by the day,” Izzi Levy, a spokesperson for the Democratic Governors Association, said in a statement that further accused Lindell of being a “sleazy businessman.”
The-CNN-Wire
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