Manuel Balce Ceneta/Carlos Osorio/AP
By Matthew Robinson
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Mike Lindell is leading the field to win the Republican primary for Minnesota governor, according to a new poll.
The survey by KSTP/SurveyUSA, conducted between June 11 and 16, revealed that 27 percent of Republican respondents backed Lindell.
Meanwhile, 22 percent backed Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth; 17 percent backed Kendall Qualls, who won the GOP endorsement; and roughly 24 percent were still undecided.
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Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, is a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump and entered the gubernatorial race in December 2025.
In January, incumbent Democratic Governor Tim Walz announced that he would not seek a third term, opening the race to a wide slate of candidates from both parties. Minnesota's primary election is scheduled for August 11, 2026.
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Lindell's Chances Against Republican Opponents
The KSTP/SurveyUSA poll showed that men skewed toward Lindell, with 31 percent backing him, compared to 22 percent for Demuth, and 17 percent for Qualls.
In contrast, women were more evenly split, with 23 percent backing Lindell, 22 percent backing Demuth, and 18 percent supporting Qualls.
Voters under the age of 50 also leaned toward Lindell. Among the 35-49 age group, 35 percent backed Lindell, compared to 16 percent for both Demuth and Qualls.
Meanwhile, Demuth performed more strongly with older voters. In the 65+ age group, 33 percent backed Demuth, compared to 25 percent for Lindell, and 14 percent for Qualls.
The poll was conducted among 450 Republican respondents, and had a margin of error of +/- 5.4 percentage points.
A separate poll, conducted by Big Data Poll between May 18 and 20, also found Lindell in the lead with 21.3 percent, compared to Demuth's 19.4 percent and Qualls' 8.8 percent.
The poll interviewed 1,236 registered voters and had a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percent. The poll was sponsored by Lindell's campaign.
Lindell's Chances Against Democrats
Despite Lindell's lead in the Republican primary field, he still faces an uphill battle in the November general election against the Democrats.
Minnesota has not elected a Republican to statewide office since 2006, when Tim Pawlenty was reelected as governor.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris won Minnesota by around 4 percentage points in 2024, while former President Joe Biden carried the state by about 7 points in 2020.
A recent poll found that Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar has a significant lead over all of her possible Republican opponents in general election match-ups.
The survey—conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. between June 8 and 10—found that in a match-up between Klobuchar and Lindell, the Democrat was ahead on 53 percent to 36 percent.
In a match-up between Klobuchar and Demuth, the Democrat led on 48 percent to 40 percent. And in a match-up between Klobuchar and Qualls, the Democrat also led on 48 percent to 37 percent.
An Emerson College poll, conducted between February 6 and 8, also found Klobuchar beating Lindell on 53 percent to 31 percent.
Prediction markets also heavily favor a Democratic win in the state. According to Polymarket, the Democrats' have a 94 percent chance of winning, compared to 4 percent for the Republicans, as of 1 a.m. ET on Thursday.
Kalshi, another prediction market, gives the Democrats a 90.7 percent chance of winning, compared to the GOP's 7.1 percent, as of 8 a.m. ET on Thursday.
A State GOP Convention Marred by Anomalies
Kendall Qualls secured the Minnesota GOP endorsement over the May 31-June 1 convention weekend after a contentious process that stretched to 10 rounds of voting and was marred by reported issues with electronic balloting, defeating state House Speaker Lisa Demuth in an upset.
But the endorsement has not cleared the field: on June 2, Demuth filed to run in the August 11 primary despite previously pledging to abide by the party’s decision, citing irregularities and confusion during the process.
Demuth said the party's message acknowledging the anomalies "felt like a full release that we could go forward."
"We are hearing from Minnesotans that are saying go forward in this, we need you, and that's what has made our decision," Demuth says, according to CBS News.
The split sets up a competitive Republican contest alongside Mike Lindell, with party unity still in question heading into the vote.
Who Is Mike Lindell?
Mike Lindell is the founder and chief executive of MyPillow, a Minnesota-based bedding company.
After the 2020 U.S. presidential election, he publicly supported claims that the vote had been rigged, despite more than 50 failed court challenges from Trump allies and statements from the president's own Justice Department rejecting widespread fraud.
His advocacy has drawn him into multiple legal disputes involving voting technology companies.
A federal judge in Minnesota ruled in September 2025 that Lindell made 51 false statements that defamed the voting technology company Smartmatic, though the ruling left open whether he acted with “actual malice,” a key legal threshold.
In June that year, a Colorado jury had awarded $2.3 million to a former Dominion Voting Systems executive after finding that Lindell defamed him by calling him a traitor.
Lindell has won at least one legal reprieve. In July 2025, a federal appeals court overturned a ruling affirming a $5 million arbitration award to a software engineer who challenged data Lindell said proved Chinese interference in the 2020 election.
When he announced his candidacy in December 2025, Lindell framed his gubernatorial campaign around issues including election security and positioned himself as an outsider candidate in Minnesota politics.
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