Skip to the story
All stories

Mike Lindell loses Minnesota primary, refuses to concede and alleges anomalies

Trump-backed MyPillow CEO claims voting irregularities after 10-point defeat to Lisa Demuth

AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made

Published Updated

What this story says

  • Mike Lindell lost the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary to Lisa Demuth by a margin of 10 points, as reported by the Hindustan Times.
  • Lindell is refusing to concede, alleging voting anomalies but offering no evidence, according to KSTP and the Independent.
  • Donald Trump endorsed Lindell in the primary, but the defeat marks one of Trump’s biggest endorsement losses in the 2026 cycle, the Hindustan Times said.
  • Lindell’s net worth is now estimated at $0 by Celebrity Net Worth, down from a prior estimate of $100-300 million, due to legal costs and lost retail partnerships.

Who covered it

Left 49%(21)Centre 23%(10)Right 28%(12)

Percentages are shares of the 43 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 1 of the 44 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .

Trust

70/100

Craft

87/100

Hype

18/100

44 sources · methodology

Missing from the right

Only 12 of the 43 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.

A reader who follows the right would not have seen this. We report the absence rather than explain it: outlets choose what to cover for many reasons, and we have no evidence about which one applies here.

Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow and a prominent ally of Donald Trump, lost the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary on 11 August 2026. He was defeated by Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth. The margin was 10 points, according to the Hindustan Times. Trump had endorsed Lindell in the race, calling him someone who "deserves to be governor of Minnesota" and praising his loyalty to Trump’s claims about the 2020 election.

Lindell is refusing to concede the result. He claims there are "anomalies in the numbers" but has not provided evidence, as reported by KSTP’s Kirsten Swanson and cited by the Hindustan Times. The Independent noted that Lindell did not explain what the alleged anomalies were. No other outlet reported any irregularities in the vote count.

Lindell’s financial situation has drawn attention following the defeat. Celebrity Net Worth now estimates his net worth at $0, down from a previous estimate of $100-300 million. The Hindustan Times attributed the decline to legal expenses, lost retail partnerships, and the fallout from his election activism. Lindell himself said in a 2023 interview with CBS Minnesota that MyPillow lost more than $100 million in retail business after he promoted claims about the 2020 election. Major retailers, including Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Kohl’s, stopped carrying MyPillow products, according to the Hindustan Times.

What the coverage left out

No right-rated outlet ran this story at all. None of the digests from the left or centre mentioned that Lindell’s son Darren became CEO of MyPillow in 2020, a detail included in the Hindustan Times’ full report. The left-rated digests did not report Lindell’s net worth or the retailers that stopped carrying his products.

Coverage settled. We checked this 14 times and stopped on 18 Aug 2026, 02:30. The figures above are what it finished at.

How each side covered it

Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.

Left

21 rated outlets

  • Sixteen left-rated outlets carried the story. The digests agree Lindell lost the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary to Lisa Demuth by over 10 percentage points, refused to concede, and alleged unspecified voting anomalies. All named the Associated Press projection of Demuth’s win. None of the digests omitted Lindell’s refusal to concede or his claims of anomalies.
  • Common Dreams and Crooks and Liars led on Lindell’s refusal to concede. Common Dreams quoted his statement that 265,000 votes remained uncounted and his dismissal of the AP. It also noted his history of election conspiracy theories, including false claims about Dominion Voting Systems in 2020. Crooks and Liars did not include these details in the material provided.
  • The digests from The Independent, Star Tribune, and MPR News reported Lindell’s claim of anomalies without evidence. The Seattle Times’ digest noted Lindell was registered to vote in Texas, not Minnesota. Mediaite, HuffPost, and Talking Points Memo digests focused on reactions to Lindell’s refusal to concede, including mockery on *Morning Joe*.

Centre

10 rated outlets

  • The three centre-rated reports all carried Lindell’s refusal to concede and his allegations of voting irregularities. The Hindustan Times, which published a full report, led on Lindell’s defeat as one of Trump’s biggest endorsement losses in the 2026 cycle. It also detailed his financial decline, his legal battles, and the retailers that stopped carrying MyPillow products. The digests from KTSM and Political Wire both noted Lindell’s refusal to concede but did not mention his financial situation or the retailers.

Right

12 rated outlets

  • All eight right-rated digests reported that Mike Lindell lost the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary to Lisa Demuth and refused to concede. They agreed on the vote shares: Demuth at 43.4% and Lindell at 32.5%. Seven of the eight noted Lindell’s allegation of voting irregularities or anomalies.
  • Five digests mentioned Lindell’s endorsement by Donald Trump. Four included his claim that 277,000 votes remained uncounted when he trailed by 20,000. None of the digests quoted Lindell directly on the nature of the alleged anomalies or provided evidence for them.
  • Three digests identified Demuth as the speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. None of the digests included a response from Demuth or Minnesota election officials to Lindell’s refusal to concede or his allegations.

Questions about this coverage

How did the left and right cover Mike Lindell loses Minnesota primary, refuses to concede and alleges…?
Of the 43 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 49% are rated left, 23% are rated centre, 28% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 44. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
Is Mike Lindell loses Minnesota primary, refuses to concede and alleges… left or right?
Neither side dominates it. Of the 43 rated outlets on this story, 49% are rated left, 23% are rated centre, 28% are rated right, and no side holds the 70% this site would want before calling a field one-sided. A story is not left or right in any case; the outlets that carried it are what carry ratings.
Is the coverage of Mike Lindell loses Minnesota primary, refuses to concede and alleges… biased?
Mike Lindell loses Minnesota primary, refuses to concede and alleges anomalies is one event reported by 44 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
Which side is not reporting Mike Lindell loses Minnesota primary, refuses to concede and alleges…?
When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
Which outlets covered Mike Lindell loses Minnesota primary, refuses to concede and alleges…?
44 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
How much did Mike Lindell lose the Minnesota primary by?
Mike Lindell lost the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary to Lisa Demuth by 10 points, according to the Hindustan Times. The margin was reported as a clear defeat for the Trump-backed candidate.
Why is Mike Lindell refusing to concede the primary?
Lindell is refusing to concede, alleging voting anomalies in the primary results. He has not provided evidence for these claims, as noted by the Independent and KSTP’s Kirsten Swanson.
What is Mike Lindell’s net worth now?
Celebrity Net Worth estimates Mike Lindell’s net worth at $0, down from a prior estimate of $100-300 million. The decline is attributed to legal costs and lost retail partnerships, the Hindustan Times reported.
Which retailers stopped carrying MyPillow products?
Major retailers including Walmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Kohl’s stopped carrying MyPillow products after Lindell promoted claims about the 2020 election, according to the Hindustan Times.

Read it at the source

44 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.

Left

21
Show 13 more

Centre

10
Show 2 more

Right

12
Show 4 more

Not rated

1

How did this read?

About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.

Mike Lindell loses Minnesota primary to Lisa Demuth by 10 points | MediaBias News