MyPillow Guy among the Trump acolytes picking up the torch

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — 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...