Mike Lindell’s biggest gubernatorial campaign expense? Copies of his memoir

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell raked in about $352,000 in campaign donations in just 2½ weeks after announcing his run for Minnesota governor on Dec. 11.

Lindell’s campaign then spent more than half of the money he’s raised on copies of his own autobiography, according to a newly filed year-end campaign finance report.

The Lindell for governor campaign paid about $187,000 to MyPillow in December for copies of his self-published memoir titled, “What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO.” It was his campaign’s biggest expenditure last year, accounting for 68% of his roughly $272,000 in spending.

In an interview on Feb. 3, Lindell said his campaign decided to hand out copies of his autobiography to voters instead of traditional flyers. He said the campaign bought around 25,000 to 30,000 copies of his book.

“Everyone’s just giving out a little flyer. Well, here’s my autobiography,” he said.

Lindell signed and gave out copies of his memoir to people at a GOP gubernatorial forum in Prior Lake in January. Lindell said MyPillow, which is “employee-owned,” owns the rights to his book.

“I’m just one of the stockholders. The majority stockholder,” Lindell said. “It’s over 50 owners.”

The Minnesota Campaign Finance Board has previously said it is OK for candidates who’ve published books to use them as campaign material.

“He’s not the first candidate that’s done that,” said Jeff Sigurdson, executive director of the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board. “I think there was a complaint lodged in one case and the board basically said, ‘no, this is all right as long as it’s reported and reported as a campaign expenditure.’”

Lindell has been in dire financial straits since he became a leading proponent of the debunked theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.

A federal judge in Minnesota found that Lindell defamed voting machine company Smartmatic with his attacks on the 2020 presidential election results. Lindell is also on the hook for $2.3 million in damages, pending appeal, following a separate defamation verdict in a suit brought by a former employee of Dominion Voting Systems, another voting machine company. He said in testimony during that case that he is $10 million in debt.

Asked in December if he had money to self-fund his gubernatorial campaign, Lindell said, “absolutely not.”