Minnesota Speaker of the House Lisa Demuth has won the Republican primary for governor in her state, beating out the GOP-endorsed and Trump-backed candidates in the race.
The Associated Press called the race just before midnight on Tuesday as Demuth was leading with about 44% of the vote to Mike Lindell’s 32% out of the ballots counted thus far.
Demuth now heads to the general election in November, where she is expected to face an uphill battle against Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
The primary saw the three front-runners vying to become the party’s nominee in a contest between different factions of the GOP.
President Donald Trump last month publicly offered his support to Lindell, a Trump loyalist better known as the “MyPillow Guy” who garnered national attention in the aftermath of the 2020 election as a prominent election denier. The state Republican Party, meanwhile, opted to endorse Kendall Qualls, a businessman and Army veteran, at a state convention in May. Despite earning neither endorsement, Demuth remained competitive in the race—and ultimately pulled out the win.
Trump has never won Minnesota in any of his three presidential runs, but Lindell, who appeared to open a lead in the polls in recent weeks, touted the President’s endorsement days before the election.
“I have an advantage over everyone up here,” Lindell said at an event on Sunday. “I can call up and work with the President of the United States.”
The former CEO, like Trump, has vocally denied the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Joe Biden. Lindell has faced defamation suits over comments he made related voting machines, some of which are ongoing. Last June, he was ordered to pay $2.3 million to a Dominion Voting Systems executive after a jury found that he spread false and damaging claims related to the 2020 election.
Prior to that election, Lindell had also become known for his MyPillow advertisements and his self-published memoir What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO, in which he chronicled his experience overcoming substance abuse and gambling. He stepped down as CEO of the pillow company earlier this month to focus on his campaign.
Lindell aligns largely with Trump’s approach to many issues, including slashing government spending. Among his campaign proposals was a “Minnesota DOGE,” a reference to the Trump Administration’s now-shuttered Department of Government Efficiency.
Although he later secured the President’s public support, Lindell was beat out by both Qualls and Demuth in the contentious voting process for the state GOP endorsement, being eliminated after finishing third in the fourth round of voting. After ten ballots, Qualls just surpassed the 60% vote needed to formally secure the endorsement.
Qualls, the first Black candidate to win a major party endorsement for governor in Minnesota, called for unity in the party following his win.
“Now is the time to remind everyone what our first Republican President said on the field of Gettysburg: That a house divided cannot stand,” Qualls said. “If we’re going to win, we got to win as a united Republican Party.”
Qualls has never previously held public office, but he was not a new face on the campaign trail in Minnesota. This year’s primary marked Qualls’ third campaign for a major seat. He mounted an unsuccessful bid in the race to represent Minnesota’s third congressional district in the U.S. House in 2020 and previously ran for governor, also unsuccessfully, in 2022.
In his bid this year, Qualls called for a “radical transformation” to the state’s tax policy and education system. “We can do a lot more with less,” he said to ABC affiliate 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS.
Demuth largely aligned on policy with Qualls, but sought to distinguish herself on the campaign trail by emphasizing her government experience as the first Black woman and Republican woman to serve as House Speaker.
“I am the best candidate who is able to look forward to November and beating Amy Klobuchar and I’ll say the Democrat machine,” Demuth said in an interview with KSTP in June. “And the reason I know I’m best-positioned to do that is when you look at my work as Speaker of the House I can draw people together.”
Demuth, who leads a state House with an even split between the two parties, touted her ability to broker deals and communicate within a thinly divided government.
“I have solid, conservative values that really do cross party lines,” she said at a news conference. “It’s not just Republican values. They’re conservative values that are supported by many Minnesotans.”
Tim Walz, who has been the governor since 2019, launched a bid for a third term but dropped out in early January amid investigations into state welfare agencies and government-affiliated programs that were widely targeted by fraud.
Minnesota hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 2006, while the last Republican senator was elected in 2002. In presidential elections, it holds the current record among the 50 states for the longest streak of voting for the Democratic candidate; it last went for a Republican in 1972, when it gave its electoral votes to Richard Nixon.
The Cook Political Report rates the Minnesota governor’s mansion as Solid Democrat, among those it deems least likely to flip in this election cycle.
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