Mike Lindell is prepared to put a seven-figure sum behind his refusal to walk away from Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary.
The MyPillow founder told NBC News that he intends to personally finance a statewide hand recount after losing the Aug. 11 contest to Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth by nearly 11 percentage points.
Minnesota officials estimated the recount itself would cost approximately $825,000. Lindell, however, said his bill could climb “upwards of $1 million” after adding the cost of his investigative team and other expenses, according to Mediaite.
The state’s reported results show Demuth receiving 179,683 votes, or 43.44 percent, compared with Lindell’s 134,282 votes, or 32.47 percent. That left Lindell 45,401 votes behind.
Demuth’s margin was roughly 44 times wider than the 0.25-percent threshold at which a candidate in a statewide race can seek a publicly funded recount.
Because the race was nowhere near that threshold, Lindell must cover the expense himself. In an Aug. 18 letter, Secretary of State General Counsel Lauren Bethke reportedly instructed him to submit a formal request and provide a bond, cash or surety for the estimated $825,000 cost by Monday, Aug. 24.
The secretary of state’s office had not received that request as of Wednesday. Lindell told NBC News that he plans to “personally go in there myself” on Monday to deliver the necessary paperwork.
He also intends to send representatives to recount locations across Minnesota. Under the state’s recount procedures, candidates and their representatives may observe the process and challenge decisions about voter intent, although only trained election officials may handle the ballots. Recounts are also open to the public and the media.
Lindell argues that his campaign discovered irregularities in election-night reporting data, though he has not publicly released evidence demonstrating that the reported result was wrong. CBS Minnesota reported that election officials have made no formal finding of fraud or irregularities in the primary.
The distinction between a recount and the broader “audit” Lindell has promoted could prove important.
Minnesota law limits a recount to determining how many valid votes were cast in the race. The process allows officials to inspect and manually count the paper ballots, but it is not an open-ended forensic investigation of tabulators, software or election-night reporting systems.
For Lindell, however, the effort appears to be about more than reversing one election 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,” Lindell said in a statement announcing the effort.
Lindell, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, refused to concede on election night while a large number of ballots remained outstanding. Trump had endorsed Lindell and made a final social media appeal for Minnesota Republicans to support him hours before the polls closed.
Once the remaining ballots were counted, however, Lindell’s deficit grew rather than disappeared. The State Canvassing Board subsequently certified Demuth as the winner.
The recount fight follows years of legal battles stemming from Lindell’s claims about voting technology and the 2020 presidential election. He reached a settlement last month in a defamation lawsuit brought by Liberty Vote, formerly Dominion Voting Systems, that had sought $1.3 billion.
In separate litigation involving Smartmatic, a federal judge held Lindell in civil contempt in March for failing to pay $56,369 in sanctions imposed over frivolous counterclaims. The judge ordered an additional penalty of $500 per day if Lindell failed to pay the original amount by April 7, according to a court order reviewed by Mediaite.
Meanwhile, Demuth is moving ahead with her general-election campaign against Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar. She told CBS Minnesota that she remains “laser focused on connecting with voters” and advancing an agenda centered on taxes, education, government fraud and the state’s business climate.
Minnesota law specifies that a candidate-funded primary recount cannot delay delivery of the nomination to the winner. That means Lindell’s million-dollar gamble will not stop Demuth from campaigning for November—even as officials prepare for the possibility of counting more than 400,000 Republican ballots by hand.
