The MyPillow guy’s political dreams have been flattened, and not even a last-minute endorsement from his favorite customer could fluff them back up. Mike Lindell, the conspiracy-peddling pillow magnate and Donald Trump’s most televised loyalist, suffered a humiliating defeat in the Minnesota GOP gubernatorial primary, bested by the far more conventional State House Speaker Lisa Demuth.

Lindell, who poured his fortune and fervor into promoting Trump’s false election claims, discovered that Minnesota Republicans have a firmer threshold for electability than he presumed. Despite Trump’s seal of approval, the party apparatus and voters ultimately chose Demuth, a figure known for her ability to navigate a narrowly divided legislature, over the bombastic businessman whose residency and business record were openly questioned by his own party’s leaders.

The primary became a referendum on the GOP’s soul in the North Star State: continue down the road of election denialism with a nationally polarizing figure, or pivot toward a pragmatic candidate who might actually win a statewide race for the first time in over two decades. Demuth’s victory sends a clear, if nuanced, message. She campaigned not on stolen elections, but on a record of fighting Democratic Governor Tim Walz in budget negotiations—a bread-and-butter conservative message that proved more compelling than Lindell’s pillow-talk paranoia.

Now, Demuth advances to face Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar in the fall, setting up a classic battle of establishment forces. For Lindell, the defeat is a stark comedown from his prime-time pundit persona. It turns out that selling pillows on Fox News and selling oneself to Minnesota voters are two entirely different propositions. One requires comfort; the other requires a coalition beyond the MAGA die-hards. Lindell’s pillow, it seems, was stuffed with nothing but hot air where political substance should have been.