When Mike Lindell, better known to TV viewers as the MyPillow Guy, went to the White House last week to try to persuade President Donald Trump to keep pushing bogus theories about the election, he came away disappointed. Unexpectedly, Trump passed him — and his claims about sabotaged voting machines — off on staffers. But the Trump true believer says he has something from Trump that softens that blow: the promise of an endorsement. The president has told him before that he would back his bid for governor of Minnesota, Lindell told The Associated Press. “Mike, if you did it, I would get behind you,” Lindell said Trump told him. It’s a prospect that sends shivers down the spines of some Republicans in the state — where Trump lost by 7 percentage points — and cuts to the heart of the national party’s existential crisis. While many Republicans, particularly those in Washington, are eager to move on from the former president and his personality-driven, racially divisive politics, Trump’s acolytes across the country are already preparing to pick up the torch. GOP state parties across the country are starting to look ahead to divisive primary fights that will test Trump’s hold on Republican voters. In Wyoming, GOP Rep. Liz Cheney drew a primary challenge shortly after voting to impeach Trump for his role in the deadly riot Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol. And in Virginia, which holds its governor’s election this year, a Trump-style Republican, state Sen. Amanda Chase, is running for the party’s nomination, even as she was recently stripped of her committee assignments for comments calling the rioters “patriots.” In states like Virginia and Minnesota, there’s little evidence that embracing Trump is a path to success for Republicans. Trump lost Virginia by 10 percentage points in November. And despite repeated visits and millions spent in Minnesota, Trump’s campaign tanked in the state, as suburban voters around the Twin Cities soundly rejected him. “The Republican brand has become toxic in the eyes of too many young people, formerly supportive suburbanites, women and diverse voters,” said former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, an establishment Republican who lost a comeback run for governor in 2018. “We don’t need to guess how a general election campaign will go here for any candidate viewed mostly as a Trump proxy. Trump lost here twice and it wasn’t even close the second time.” Still, after four years of Trump’s leadership, it’s not easy finding an active Republican in the state who hasn’t aligned with Trump. The field of Republicans considering campaigns is dominated by pro-Trump conservatives. They include state Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka, a soft-spoken insurance agent who joined many Republicans around the country in fighting governors’ lockdown orders and COVID precautions, even as a Republican state senator died of complications from COVID-19 that he may have contracted at a party event. Also on the list is former state Sen. Scott Jensen, a doctor who has suggested that the COVID-19 toll has been inflated; U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, who backed some efforts to overturn the election results before ultimately voting to affirm Biden’s victory; and former Minnesota Vikings lineman Matt Birk, a religious conservative who declared publicly he wouldn’t take the coronavirus vaccine. Lindell is a distinctly Trump-era figure. Just a few years ago, he was […]

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