Minnesota state House Speaker Lisa Demuth won the Republican primary for governor of the state, NBC News projects, defeating Trump ally Mike Lindell and setting up a general election matchup against Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Demuth’s primary victory was an upset against Lindell, the MyPillow founder and election conspiracy theorist. Lindell had been leading in limited public polling heading into Election Day and had an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
But attacks on Lindell from fellow Republicans — including questions about his residency raised by the chairman of the Minnesota Republican Party — hampered the businessman’s campaign in the final weeks before the primary, as members of the Minnesota GOP sought a nominee who could beat Klobuchar in the general election.
Lindell has faced several legal challenges since 2020, when he championed Trump’s debunked theories about the 2020 presidential election, which former President Joe Biden won.
At a Minnesota Farmfest forum earlier this month, Klobuchar appeared alongside three GOP candidates for governor and accused them each of being “a rubber stamp of Donald Trump.”
But Demuth and other Republicans — including Trump — have attacked Democrats in the blue state over two sprawling fraud scandals involving Medicaid and pandemic aid. The allegations include hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen money that had been earmarked for welfare programs.
At the farm event, Demuth blamed “incompetent Democrat control” for the fraud cases, and she has pointed on the campaign trail to the Fraud Prevention Agency Oversight Committee she established while leading the state House.
In January, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who had planned to run for a third term, decided to drop his re-election campaign, citing the attacks over the fraud cases. A few weeks later, Klobuchar launched her campaign. She is one of four senators to seek the governorship in their home state this year.
Still, Republicans will have to overcome political trends in Minnesota in November to win the governor’s mansion. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris won the state by about 4 percentage points in the most recent presidential election, where Walz ran as her running mate.