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 County results Walz: 40-50% 50-60% 60-70% 70-80% Lindell: 40-50% 50-60% 60-70% 70-80% | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial election took place on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, to elect the governor of Minnesota. Incumbent Democratic (DFL) Governor Tim Walz was re-elected to a third term, defeating the Republican nominee, businessman and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell. Part of a national blue wave, Walz's victory was widely expected by pundits despite Minnesota's only marginal Democratic tilt, with the governor enjoying high approval ratings amongst Minnesotans and Republican president Ron DeSantis' extreme unpopularity in the state, though Walz's controversial decision to run for a third term was expected to slightly harm his position.
Lindell, most well known as the founder of My Pillow, campaigned as a political outsider and a staunch Trumpist, running a campaign widely described as right-wing populist or far-right. Lindell promoted numerous falsehoods and conspiracy theories during his campaign, including claims of large-scale voter fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election, QAnon, the "gay agenda," as well as several allegedly racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic and xenophobic remarks. While polling showed a close race at multiple points, Walz would end up handily defeating Lindell by 12 points to become the first Minnesota governor to be re-elected to a third term since 1958, as well as the first in the state's history to be re-elected to a third term since gubernatorial terms were extended to four years in 1966.
However, Lindell would refuse to concede defeat, making unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and intimidation from "radical Black Lives Matter militants". Lindell would have himself sworn in as the state's governor at the Rock County Courthouse in Luverne, and much of the Republican delegation to the Minnesota Legislature refused to cooperate with Walz's government, kick-starting the 2027 Minnesota government crisis in which both Walz's government in Saint Paul and Lindell's government in Luverne attempted to operate as the state's government for several months, leading to numerous disputes between the two. The crisis would only end in August of 2027 when Lindell and his cabinet agreed to "resign" in return for being granted amnesty, making Walz the sole legal governor of Minnesota. This was the last time the DFL would win a gubernatorial election in Minnesota until 2038.
Democratic–Farmer–Labor primary[]
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