Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz defeated Republican candidate Scott Jensen Nov. 8 by an 8-point margin. But a recent Instagram post by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell claims that “Minnesota was stolen from Scott Jensen.”
Lindell, who has previously shared debunked conspiracy theories about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, posted a graphic that shows a surge of votes for Walz around 10:10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time — just after the polls closed in Minnesota — and smaller surge for Jensen.
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We found the website with the graphic in the post that appears to show vote tallies for the candidates from 9:33 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Nov. 8 to 11:05 a.m. Nov. 9, at which point it says Walz had 1,312,613 votes and Jensen had 1,121,585 votes.
That’s close to the results on the secretary of state’s website, which was last updated Nov. 9 at 1:08 p.m. Central Standard Time — Minnesota’s time zone — with 100% of precincts reporting in the state. According to the secretary of state, Walz had 1,312,242 votes at that time and Jensen had 1,119,910 votes.
Cassondra Knudson, a secretary of state’s office spokesperson, told PolitiFact she couldn’t verify the accuracy of the chart in the Instagram post but noted that around the time it shows the surge in votes is when Minnesota’s largest county, Hennepin County, reported its election results. Those votes went to Walz by a wide margin, keeping with historical precedent, Knudson said.
“There is absolutely no reason to believe the election results are inaccurate in any way,” Knudson said. But she added that the results on the secretary of state’s website are unofficial and will be canvassed at the county and state levels before they’re verified, and each county will conduct a post-election audit to ensure voting machines worked accurately.
Jensen conceded the election early Nov. 9.
“Tim Walz is governor for four more years,” he said. “Republicans, quite frankly, we didn’t have a red wave. It was a blue wave. And we need to stop, we need to recalibrate, we need to ask ourselves: ‘OK, what can we learn from this? What can we do better? How do we go forward?’”
He didn’t allege that the election was stolen from him.
The Star Tribune reported that Walz triumphed in the race in part by winning strong support in “areas of the Twin Cities metro area core and its suburbs.”
Claims that the Minnesota governor’s race was “stolen” are baseless. We rate them Pants on Fire!
