Billionaire Steyer, After Losing a Primary by 11 Points, Will Spend $1 Million of His Own to Recount the Ballots
The self-funder cites 'anomalies' his own team says it spotted on election night; officials report no findings of fraud, only of a 45,000-vote margin
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
SACRAMENTO — Steyer, the self-funding businessman who lost his party's primary for governor by eleven points, announced this week that he will spend nearly $1 million of his own money to conduct a hand recount of the ballots, citing 'anomalies' that he said his own team detected on election night and that election officials said they did not.
The margin under review is roughly 45,000 votes, a figure The Press's arithmetic desk notes is difficult to reverse by inspection, being both large and, so far as anyone official can determine, correct. Among the irregularities Steyer cited were vote totals that appeared to move backward as counts were reported, unusually synchronized numbers across candidates, and counties that he said reported more votes than were cast — claims that, when examined, turned out to describe the ordinary behavior of a tally being updated in public.
There have been no official findings of fraud or irregularity in the result. This has not slowed the recount, which is funded, organized, and demanded by the one candidate the count did not favor, on the theory that a number this disappointing must be wrong.
The Press's ballot desk observes that a recount is either a solemn safeguard of democracy or a rich man refusing to read a scoreboard, depending entirely on whether the candidate calling for it is ahead or behind, and that no losing candidate in American history has ever inspected the ballots and concluded, at his own expense, that he lost fair and square.
Reaction followed the standing choreography. Supporters saw a fighter who would not let a suspicious count stand; opponents saw a millionaire buying himself a second opinion on arithmetic. The Press archives confirm both parties own the vocabulary — 'election integrity' and 'conspiracy theory' — and swap it, ballot by ballot, whenever the other side is the one who came up short.
The 45,000 votes, contacted for comment, remained 45,000, and declined to be recounted into a smaller number.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: MyPillow founder and Trump ally Mike Lindell, who lost the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial primary on Aug. 11 by 11 points (about 45,000 votes) to state House Speaker Lisa Demuth, said he is prepared to spend nearly $1 million to fund a statewide hand recount, citing 'irregularities' his team claimed to catch on election night — including vote totals moving backward, synchronized totals across candidates, and counties reporting more votes than cast. There have been no official findings of fraud.