The left sued Mike Lindell into $10 million of personal debt trying to destroy him.
He's still standing – and now he's leading in the race to be Minnesota's next governor.
What the new poll just showed is something the DFL machine never wanted to see one week before the GOP convention.
From the Pillow Factory to the Front of the Pack
Mike Lindell announced his run for governor in December from his Shakopee pillow factory, streaming it live on LindellTV.
The political class laughed.
They always laugh.
But a new Big Data Poll – conducted May 18 through May 20, surveying 512 Republican voters – shows Lindell leading the field at 21 percent, narrowly ahead of Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth at 19 percent.
Kendall Qualls, a veteran and former healthcare executive, comes in at 9 percent.
Every other candidate is in the single digits.
The timing couldn't be more pointed.
The Minnesota GOP Convention lands in Duluth on May 29th and 30th – one week away.
And the poll tested a scenario every Democrat in Minnesota is quietly dreading: with a Trump endorsement, Lindell's lead grows to a commanding 22 points.
What Lindell Has Already Survived
This isn't a man who stumbled into politics looking for a platform.
Mike Lindell has been under coordinated legal and financial assault for years.
Dominion Voting Systems filed a $1.3 billion defamation suit against him in 2021.
Smartmatic added its own lawsuit.
A Minnesota federal judge ruled in September that Lindell defamed Smartmatic.
A Colorado jury ordered him to pay $2.3 million to a former Dominion employee.
By his own account, he was once worth roughly $60 million and is now $10 million in debt.
He didn't fold.
Lindell told the Associated Press last December that he'd "built businesses" and survived "the biggest attack on a company, and a person, probably other than Donald Trump, in the history of our media."
That's a man who took everything the left could throw at him and chose to run for governor anyway.
The State Keith Ellison and Amy Klobuchar Are Counting On
Minnesota hasn't elected a Republican statewide since 2006.
But this is not a normal year.
Tim Walz dropped out of the governor's race in January under mounting pressure over $9 billion in Medicaid fraud that metastasized on his watch.
"I can't give a political campaign my all," Walz said in his exit statement.
Democrats are scrambling to hold the seat.
Amy Klobuchar is weighing a run.
Keith Ellison – the attorney general whose office the House Oversight Committee says knew about fraud allegations years before the scandal broke and did nothing – is also being discussed as a potential candidate.
The Republican Oversight Committee's report put it plainly: Walz and Ellison "lied about knowledge of fraud and silenced whistleblowers."
That's the record the DFL wants to run on.
Meanwhile, 68 percent of Minnesota GOP primary voters in an earlier NRSC survey identified with the Trump/MAGA wing of the party.
Lindell is the candidate most visibly aligned with that movement – and the fraud issue he has campaigned on since December is now the documented legacy of Walz and Ellison.
Minnesota spent a decade ignoring people who warned about this.
Why the Convention in Duluth Changes Everything
The MN GOP State Convention in Duluth next weekend is the next critical waypoint.
Demuth, Qualls, and Knight have all pledged to honor the convention endorsement.
Lindell has not – and that gives him an option no other candidate has.
Win the convention endorsement, carry that momentum into the fall.
Lose the endorsement, take the race directly to August primary voters and let the base decide.
Either way, he's in.
With 40 percent of Republican voters still undecided, the delegates walking into Duluth next weekend will decide which candidate carries that energy against Klobuchar or Ellison in November.
Minnesota's conservatives have been waiting for someone who actually paid a price for fighting.
Mike Lindell's price tag is public record.
Sources:
- Joe Hoft, "Mike Lindell Leading the GOP Race for Minnesota Governor," The Gateway Pundit, May 23, 2026.
- WLT Report Staff, "New Poll Gives Mike Lindell Huge News In Minnesota Governor Race," WLT Report, May 23, 2026.
- Tim Pugmire, "MyPillow's Mike Lindell announces he's running for Minnesota governor," CBS Minnesota, December 11, 2025.
- Tim Pugmire, "Gov. Tim Walz drops out of 2026 Minnesota governor's race," CBS Minnesota, January 5, 2026.
- "State Convention 2026," Republican Party of Minnesota, mngop.com.
- "Hearing Wrap Up: Minnesota Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison Lied About Knowledge of Fraud and Silenced Whistleblowers," House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, March 4, 2026.
- Brian Bakst, "Judge rules MyPillow founder defamed Smartmatic," The Hill, September 29, 2025.
