Now-failed Minnesota gubernatorial candidate and prolific 2020 election denier Mike Lindell lost his bid for Minnesota governor on Tuesday night to the state’s Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, who received 44.7% of the vote. Predictably, however, Lindell now has some questions about the results of his primary loss, and what he claims could be “anomalies” in the results. 

A Very Important Story (With Some Wonky Details)

TPM’s Layla A. Jones and Josh Kovensky published a major story yesterday outlining a new, draft Commerce Department rule that is circulating within the Trump administration. Our story includes documents that TPM is the first outlet to make public.

The rule aims to do two things: exclude undocumented immigrants and other types of non-citizens from the census (in violation of the Constitution), and stop the census from collecting most demographic data on Americans.

These changes would have several impacts, the enormity of which is hard to overstate:

• They would likely change allocations of power in Congress, shifting it toward red states. After the decennial census, the federal government apportions congressional seats to states. A census that doesn’t count many categories of non-citizens would see fewer congressional seats apportioned to blue states, and, as a result, more apportioned to red states.
• They would likely change the Electoral College, again shifting power toward red states. The Electoral College is based on each state’s congressional allotment. Fewer seats for blue states in Congress would mean blue-state voters have less power to elect the president.
• They would eliminate a crucial source of data. By not collecting data on race and other demographics, the administration would eliminate information that is critical both for the government, as it distributes congressionally allocated funds to various communities meant to receive those funds, and to researchers trying to better understand America.
• They would make it harder to challenge maps that are gerrymandered based on race. Data on race is a critical tool for plaintiffs looking to prove that state governments have illegally carved up their congressional districts to dilute the power of minority voters. “You have to prove discrimination, you have to prove the fact that you have been discriminated against,” Walter Schwarm, a California state demographer, told TPM. “But if you don’t have race and ethnic data on the ground, how can you prove that you’re being discriminated against?”

Another Big Primary Night

Last night saw voters pick candidates in several states, including Minnesota, South Carolina, and the swing state of Wisconsin.

• Primaries are very hard to poll, in part because pollsters try to model a comparatively small and shifting electorate. It’s effectively taking a guess about who might vote in the primary, which can change a lot from year to year. Even so, this year has seen some headline-grabbing polling misses, including in Michigan last week, where Haley Stevens came much closer to Abdul El-Sayed than polls were predicting. Last night saw that phenomenon repeat again, in the closely-watched Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial primary, and also in the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary.
• In Minnesota, Mike Lindell lost his bid for governor! More on that below.
• In Wisconsin, Milwaukee County executive David Crowley squeaked out a victory in the Democratic gubernatorial primary over the DSA-endorsed Francesca Hong, who has become a kind of media obsession. Gov. Tony Evers (D) campaigned for Crowley, believing him to be a more competitive candidate against Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), the very right-wing member of Congress Republicans are running for governor. The race, in which over 600,000 votes were cast, came down to about 3,000.
• Rebecca Cooke, a Democrat endorsed by figures in both the party establishment and the left, won a primary to face Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R) in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers a large, western chunk of the state.
• Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), the man who called for “Marshall Law” after Jan. 6, yet has had a hot and cold relationship with Trump, beat out a very crowded field and advanced to a runoff against Sen. Darline Graham (R) in South Carolina.

Tabs

• A U.S. District Court judge expanded a ruling blocking the Trump administration from implementing one of the president’s executive orders on voting ahead of the midterms. Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts had previously ordered the administration not to move forward on figuring out how the U.S. Postal Service would implement the directive that it only send mail ballots to administration-approved voters. Her initial order applied to 23 states that were plaintiffs in the case; yesterday she expanded it nationwide. Trump has appealed this case to the Supreme Court, which should weigh in any day now.
• The MIT Technology Review has a fascinating deep dive on how conspiracy theories about the “censorship-industrial complex” became endemic among right-wing influencers and the Trump administration.

Man of the Hour

It’s Mike Lindell, who polling showed to be a strong contender in his bid for Minnesota governor, even as state Republican leaders strongly opposed his candidacy. Alas, he wasn’t. We’ll see if he understands a global conspiracy to be at fault here.

Are We at War?

Yes, with Iran preparing for the long haul.

Pillow magnate and election denier Mike Lindell lost a high-stakes Minnesota GOP gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, despite receiving an endorsement from President Donald Trump last month. He also lost the Minnesota Republican Party’s endorsement in the race in June to former health care executive and army veteran, Kendall Qualls.

Mike Lindell’s Big Moment

Amid the wall-to-wall coverage of Wisconsin Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong’s personal evolution or possible lack thereof on the topic of Thanksgiving, you may have missed that the Republican Party is on the cusp of picking two quite extreme gubernatorial nominees on the same evening.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI) faces little opposition and will become Republicans’ nominee for governor in his home state tonight. As Khaya Himmelman writes for TPM, he is an election denier who has put in the work, not just objecting in Congress against certifying the results of the 2020 election and signing onto Ken Paxton’s lawsuit that year to throw out the results, but continuing to insist that the 2020 election saw “improprieties.” (If you’re curious where he stands on such “Woke I” issues as “Thanksgiving,” he was also one of only 14 Republicans in Congress to vote against making Juneteenth a federal holiday.) This is, to be fair, why Democrats in the state are so concerned about the fate of their own ticket.

I am really here, however, to talk about Minnesota, where Mike Lindell, the man who visited Trump with a proposal for martial law in the days after Jan. 6 and who continues to boost the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the year in which our politics has become forever trapped. Tonight, Lindell has a real shot at becoming Republicans’ Minnesota gubernatorial candidate.

This is in part the result of the field splitting three ways. Minnesota state House Speaker Lisa DeMuth has the money behind her, but the state GOP endorsed another candidate, businessman Kendall Qualls.

Trump, however, endorsed Lindell, and primary voters’ hearts appear to be with the pillow salesman and conspiracy theorist. Poll after poll has shown him ahead, though it is unclear how reliable each of these surveys is. Lindell has faced a series of bizarre and sometimes dumb scandals given that he is, after all, Mike Lindell. The latest is an accusation that he violated campaign finance law by handing out MyPillows on the campaign trail. More seriously, the state GOP continues to question whether Lindell, who previously lived in Texas, even meets the residency requirements for the ballot.

“We’ve never had a party challenge the residency of one of its serious candidates,” Steven Schier, a political scientist at Carleton College, summed it up for the local ABC affiliate. “And then you add the fact that this candidate has been endorsed by the president of that party. It’s really an extraordinary situation.”

Whoever wins this race will face Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) after current governor Tim Walz (D) decided not to run again. The Minnesota primaries so far have seen record-breaking turnout, the secretary of state said yesterday.

Darline Graham Gets a Challenger

South Carolina will hold a special election today to replace Sen. Lindsey Graham (R), whose sister, Darline Graham Nordone, has filled his seat after his death and is running to fill it for a full term. She faces a crowded field of other candidates. Two — presumably the Trump-endorsed Graham and one other — will advance to a runoff. The field contains some familiar names.

• Ralph Norman, who — TPM broke the news — privately urged the White House to invoke “Marshall Law” following the 2020 election, is one. He was crushed in his bid to become the state’s governor earlier this year.
• Former state governor, congressman, and hiker Mark Sanford is also running.
• As is Rep. Russell Fry, who in 2022 unseated Rep. Tom Rice, a Republican critic of Trump who was among the 10 to vote to impeach him.
• Whoever wins will run in November against Democrat Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who has previously run against Rep. Nancy Mace (R).

Tabs

• Donald Trump was smuggled out of a UK-bound plane and onto another in a catering crate, leaving Turkey in a military jet last month amid an attempt on his life from Iran.
• After supporting some industry priorities last year, a handful of pro-crypto Senate Democrats have balked at its latest demand.
• The DOJ’s bid to get states’ voter roles has lost in court 21 times in a row, Reuters reports.

Man of the Hour

It’s Max Miller, who we’ve covered a lot here, and who, in the face of abuse and domestic violence accusations is now running in a seat that the Cook Political Report has shifted all the way from “likely Republican” to “toss up.” Democrats are now spending seriously on his opponent, Brian Poindexter. The White House urged Republicans not to criticize Miller after it became clear he wasn’t going to quit, Politico reported yesterday.

Are We at War?

Yes, with Trump attempting to one-up Iran by demanding it pay damages to the U.S.

Pillow magnate and election denier Mike Lindell, who is also the Trump-endorsed Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota, is reportedly not even registered to vote in Minnesota. Lindell, however, disputes this, telling TPM it’s simply “fake news.”