Posted on 05/23/2026 10:28:13 AM PDT by Red Badger
Mike Lindell just posted numbers that have to be making his rivals nervous.
A new Big Data Poll released by the Lindell campaign shows the MyPillow founder leading the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary at 21 percent, narrowly ahead of Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth at 19 percent.
election is less than a week away.
The poll, conducted May 18 through May 20, surveyed 1,236 registered voters including 512 Republicans, according to the Lindell campaign.
On the initial ballot, Lindell is listed at 21 percent, Demuth at 19 percent, and Qualls at 9 percent, with Patrick Knight, Peggy Bennett, John Krhin, Phillip Parrish, and Raul Estrada trailing behind them. The release gives Big Data Poll’s field dates as May 18 through May 20, with 1,236 registered voters, 1,114 likely voters, and 512 Republicans included in the sample.
The release puts the overall sampling error at plus or minus 2.8 percent and says subgroup margins are higher, which matters because the Republican primary numbers come from a smaller slice of the full sample. The President Trump endorsement test is the other major piece: under that scenario, Lindell jumps to roughly 36 percent, Demuth falls near 14 percent, and Qualls sits around 8 percent.
That is the poll result driving the political heat here, especially with convention week now closing in on every campaign.
Now here is the number that jumps off the page: in a President Trump endorsement test scenario, Lindell surges to nearly 36 percent while Demuth drops to roughly 14 percent.
That is a 22-point gap if Trump were to put his thumb on the scale.
To be clear, this is an internal poll commissioned by the Lindell campaign rather than an independent media survey. Internal polls are designed to show a candidate’s best possible positioning, and campaigns rarely release numbers that make them look weak.
Still, the trend line is not new. An older Peak Insights/NRSC topline from earlier this year already had Lindell at 18 percent and Demuth at 17 percent among GOP primary voters, with 68 percent of respondents identifying with the Trump/MAGA wing of the party.
Lindell has been competitive in this race for months. The new numbers suggest he may be pulling ahead.
The massive undecided vote is the elephant in the room. Over 40 percent of Republican respondents have not committed to a candidate, which means the convention fight is wide open and delegate loyalty will matter enormously.
The Republican Party of Minnesota has the convention stakes laid out here:
The 2026 State Convention is scheduled for May 29 through May 30 at the Duluth Entertainment Center, with the event built around party business and statewide endorsements. One listed purpose is endorsing gubernatorial and lieutenant governor candidates, which makes a late movement poll especially important for campaigns trying to show delegates they have real grassroots energy.
The statewide abiding-candidates page names Lisa Demuth and running mate Ryan Wilson, Kendall Qualls, and Patrick Knight as governor candidates who agreed to honor the convention endorsement. Lindell is absent from that abiding list, so his campaign can fight for delegate momentum while also preserving the option to take the race directly to August primary voters.
That dynamic gives this poll a second layer. If Lindell can convince Minnesota Republicans that he has the strongest connection to President Trump’s voters, he can pressure the party establishment even if the formal endorsement process tilts toward one of the candidates already committed to abide.
That distinction matters.
A candidate who does not agree to abide by the endorsement can still run in the August primary regardless of the convention outcome. Lindell appears to be keeping his options open.
KTTC reported that a May 21 GOP gubernatorial debate featured Demuth, Knight, and Qualls, each of whom had committed to honor the convention endorsement.
Lindell missed that debate stage. If these numbers hold, he may not need that stage to prove he has a lane.
The MAGA grassroots energy in Minnesota is real. Nearly seven in ten GOP voters in the earlier NRSC survey identified with the Trump wing of the party, and Lindell is the candidate most visibly aligned with that movement.
Whether this momentum carries through Duluth next weekend is the question that matters now. With 40 percent of voters still up for grabs, nothing is locked in, but Lindell has positioned himself exactly where he wants to be heading into convention week.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.
What are your thoughts?
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Mike will sleep well tonight.
Hopefully, if he wins the Republican ptrimary, that enough people in Wisconsin, will vote him in in the general election, but I certainly won’t be holding my breath when it comes to any Republican in that state.
Wisconsin??
sarcasm?
Insidious Democrats are registering as Republicans to destroy our party. They took a terrible toll in Idaho in their primary. If they can organize that in Idaho, they are doing it everywhere else.
He should sleep well for sure. All those pillows
Public polling in Minnesota always favors the Republican least likely to win. They’re all in the Democrat pocket.
A pillow with every pot.
Gee, I guessed you missed the Minnesota in the title? He’s not from Wisconsin.
Oh I see, I did type wisconsin, instead of Minnesota, my bad. LOL. My brain thinks one thing, but my fingers type another thing. Part of my dslexia I guess.
We can pay for - and write the rules for - our own Primary.
State Jungle Primaries mean nothing if the GOP has one - and only one - GOP candidate in each Jungle Primary.
One of the consequences of no longer having state conventions picking state candidates.
It's Republican, not Democrat, so only legal voters can vote for him.
“narrowly ahead” for a republican is almost always bad news in any political race, for the obvious reason that it’s the point at which the fraud machine ramps up its ballot printing, harvesting and even transporting “voters” from out of the area. Narrowly ahead means a democrat win by huge double digit numbers.
Not to be way ghoulish about the race in MN, but I’m surprised the walking cadaver of former government Janos/Ventura hasn’t risen to slam Lindell and pimp the dem opponent.
This isn’t the general. it’s the primary.
Amy K will cheat to win in the general. don’t matter who the republicans run.
and the republicans are losing votes in MN as people like me pack and leave. I won’t be in MN for the next election.
Excellent news!
Democrats will LOVE Lindell as the GOP nominee.
“Amy K will cheat to win in the general. don’t matter who the republicans run.”
I realize that any election a Republican loses must be due solely to fraud, but this is Minnesota — do Democrats really NEED to cheat to win statewide there?
If so, they must be really good at it because no Minnesota Republican has won statewide in the last 20 years — the last one was Tim Pawlenty for Governor in ‘06, and he didn’t even get 50% of the vote. He won only because 2 other lefties were on the ballot in addition to Mike Hatch (D).
Minnesota leftists don’t do that kind of thing anymore, now that the dirtbag-doper parties have become obsolete after 2022. Democrats will begin winning in Minnesota by even more now.
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