SHAKOPEE, Minnesota
AP
—
Mike Lindell, the fervent supporter of President Donald Trump recognized to TV viewers because the “MyPillow Guy,” formally entered the race for Minnesota governor on Thursday in hopes of successful the Republican nomination to problem Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.
“I’ll leave no town unturned in Minnesota,” Lindell advised The Associated Press in an interview forward of a information convention set for Thursday.
He mentioned he has a file of fixing issues and private experiences that can assist companies and struggle dependancy and homelessness in addition to fraud in authorities packages. The fraud issue has particularly dogged Walz, who introduced in September that he’s searching for a 3rd time period in the 2026 election.
Lindell, 64, based his pillow firm in Minnesota in 2009 and grew to become its public face by means of infomercials that grew to become ubiquitous on late-night tv. But he and his firm confronted a string of legal and financial setbacks after he grew to become a number one amplifier of Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. He mentioned he has overcome these setbacks.
“Not only have I built businesses, you look at problem solution,” Lindell mentioned in his trademark rapid-fire model. “I was able to make it through the biggest attack on a company, and a person, probably other than Donald Trump, in the history of our media … lawfare and everything.”
While no Republican has received statewide workplace in Minnesota since 2006, the state’s voters have a historical past of constructing unconventional selections. They shocked the world by electing former skilled wrestler Jesse Ventura as governor in 1998. And they picked a veteran TV pitchman in 1978 after they elected residence enchancment firm proprietor Rudy Boschwitz as a US senator.
Lindell has steadily talked about how he overcame a crack cocaine dependancy with a spiritual conversion in 2009 as MyPillow was getting going. His life took one other flip in 2016 when he met the longer term president throughout Trump’s first marketing campaign. He served as a warm-up speaker at dozens of Trump rallies and co-chaired Trump’s marketing campaign in Minnesota.
Trump’s endorsement might be the important thing to which of a number of candidates wins the GOP nomination to problem Walz. But Lindell mentioned he doesn’t know what Trump will do, though they’re associates, and mentioned his marketing campaign isn’t contingent on the president’s assist.
His Lindell TV streaming platform was in the information in November when it grew to become certainly one of a number of conservative information retailers that grew to become credentialed to cowl the Pentagon after agreeing to a restrictive new press coverage rejected by nearly all legacy media organizations.
Lindell’s outspoken assist for Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen triggered a backlash as main retailers discontinued MyPillow merchandise. By his personal admission, income slumped and traces of credit score dried up, costing him thousands and thousands. Several distributors sued MyPillow over billing disputes. Fox News stopped running his commercials. Lawyers give up on him.
Lindell has been sued twice for defamation over his claims that voting machines had been manipulated to deprive Trump of a victory.
A federal choose in Minnesota dominated in September that Lindell defamed Smartmatic with 51 false statements. But the choose deferred the query of whether or not Lindell acted with the “actual malice” that Smartmatic should show to gather. Smartmatic says it’s searching for “nine-figure damages.”
A Colorado jury in June discovered that Lindell defamed a former Dominion Voting Systems govt by calling him a traitor, and awarded $2.3 million in damages.
But Lindell received a victory in July when a federal appeals court docket overturned a choose’s choice that affirmed a $5 million arbitration award to a software program engineer who disputed knowledge that Lindell claimed proved Chinese interference in the 2020 election. The engineer had accepted Lindell’s “Prove Mike Wrong Challenge,” which he launched as a part of his 2021 “Cyber Symposium” in South Dakota, the place he promised to reveal election fraud.
Lindell mentioned his campaign towards digital voting machines will simply be a part of his platform. While Minnesota makes use of paper ballots, it additionally makes use of digital tabulators to rely them. Lindell desires them hand-counted, though many election officers say machine counting is extra correct.
Some Republicans in the race embody Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth, of Cold Spring; Dr. Scott Jensen, a former state senator from Chaska who was the occasion’s 2022 candidate; state Rep. Kristin Robbins, of Maple Grove; protection lawyer and former federal prosecutor Chris Madel; and former govt Kendall Qualls.
“These guys haven’t lived what I live,” Lindell mentioned.
Lindell wouldn’t decide to abiding by the Minnesota GOP endorsement and forgoing the first if he loses it, expressing confidence that he’ll win. He additionally mentioned he’ll depend on his supporters to finance his marketing campaign as a result of his personal funds are drained. “I don’t have the money,” he acknowledged.
But he added that ever since phrase received out final week that he had filed the paperwork to run, “I’ve had thousands upon thousands of people text and call, saying from all around the country … ‘Hey, I’ll donate.’”