Lindell Offers to Fund Recount in Minnesota GOP Governor Race

Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder and longtime election denier, has offered to personally pay for a recount and audit of every paper ballot cast in Minnesota's Republican gubernatorial primary, which he lost last week.

Lindell's announcement Wednesday escalates his effort to challenge the results after finishing a distant second to Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth. The Associated Press called the race for Demuth late on election night, August 11, with Lindell trailing by roughly 11 percentage points — a margin far wider than the 0.25% threshold that would trigger an automatic, state-funded recount.

Because the gap exceeds that threshold, Lindell must formally request the recount and cover its cost himself. He cited a Minnesota law he said gives candidates the right to a complete hand count of every ballot in the state "to the full extent of the law," despite receiving a strong endorsement from President Trump ahead of the primary.

Minnesota Secretary of State General Counsel Lauren Bethke estimated in a Tuesday letter to Lindell that a full recount of the governor and lieutenant governor races would cost about $825,000, according to CBS News. The letter reportedly gives Lindell until Monday, August 24, to submit both the request and payment.

Lindell's campaign alleged "irregularities identified in election-night electronic reporting data" in its news release announcing the recount bid.

The move follows years of election-related claims by Lindell, who built his political profile around the false claim that President Trump's 2020 defeat resulted from a rigged election. He has said he spent tens of millions of dollars pursuing that theory through lawsuits, documentaries and conferences, and courts have repeatedly rejected the claims. Last month, Lindell settled a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit filed by voting technology company Liberty Vote, formerly known as Dominion Voting Systems, over the stolen-election claims.