Funny how the same people who spent November 2020 screaming “count every vote” from the rooftops are now tripping over themselves to tell Mike Lindell to sit down and shut up because the Associated Press made a phone call.
Lindell lost Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth by roughly 11 points, more than 45,000 votes, with over 95 percent of the expected vote tallied. Those are the numbers from Decision Desk HQ. Nobody is disputing that Demuth is ahead. What Lindell is disputing is the rush to slam the door before every ballot is processed, and somehow that makes him the crazy one.
Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America (CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons“Why would I listen to the AP?” Lindell said on his own network, LindellTV, when a reporter asked if he’d concede once the wire service called the race. He pointed to 265,000 votes still uncounted and an 18,000-vote gap at that moment. A few hours earlier he’d cited 277,000 outstanding ballots and a 20,000-vote deficit. The numbers moved. That’s what numbers do when votes are still being counted. But ask yourself: since when is waiting for the full count a radical act?
KSTP reporter Kirsten Swanson noted Lindell alleged “anomalies in the numbers” and said his teams would investigate overnight. The media framing was immediate. Not “candidate wants all votes counted.” Not “campaign reviews totals.” Anomalies. Irregularities. The loaded language came out before anyone had time to look at anything.
Here’s what I know. Every time somebody questions an election result in this country, the same machinery kicks into gear. The experts cluck. The pundits mock. The late-night hosts do their little routines. Rep. Ted Lieu jumped on X to crack wise about Venezuela rigging the election against Lindell because “they don’t like his pillows.” Real clever stuff from a man who writes federal laws for a living. The whole point is to make it socially unacceptable to ask questions. And it works. You watch the pile-on and you think, well, I don’t want to be the crazy one, so I’ll just accept whatever the AP tells me.
Lisa Demuth for Governor (CC0) via Wikimedia CommonsLindell has baggage. Nobody is pretending he doesn’t. He was found liable for defamation against Eric Coomer, a former Dominion Voting Systems employee, and ordered to pay $2.3 million. He stepped down as MyPillow CEO to run for governor. Trump endorsed him late, posting on Truth Social that Lindell “deserves a BIG WIN” and “will not let you down.” He didn’t get the big win. He got 32 percent to Demuth’s 43 percent.
But none of that changes the principle. Either every vote gets counted or it doesn’t. Either you wait for the final tally or you don’t. You don’t get to have one standard for elections you like and another for elections you don’t. And you don’t get to mock a man for wanting the same thing your side wanted six years ago.
Spc. Eric Guzman (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsDemuth, to her credit, declared victory and moved on. She called it a “major milestone” and said Minnesotans are “ready for real change.” She’ll face Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November for the open governor’s seat. That race is the real fight, and the establishment knows it. They want this primary story buried so they can pivot to the general. A clean narrative. No loose ends. No questions about vote totals or anomalies or why the numbers kept shifting through the night.
Lindell will eventually concede or he won’t. The votes will get counted or they won’t. But the next time someone tells you that asking questions about an election is a threat to democracy, remember what they really mean. They mean democracy works fine as long as you accept the answer they already wrote for you.