The Minnesota Caucus Charade – Millions Spent by the Donor Class, Yet They Couldn’t Fill a High-School Gym Across the State. The 80% Have Had Enough.
Phillip from Kenyon, Minnesota (right here in Goodhue County, just a short drive from where so many of us live and work), this is the slap in the face we’ve all felt for years — now laid bare in cold, hard numbers from the February 3, 2026 precinct caucuses (with statewide GOP results finalizing as of February 4 evening reports from mngop.com and local tallies).
The donor-class politicians and their puppet campaigns raised tens of millions in 2025 alone:
• Kendall Qualls: $604,000
• Kristin Robbins: $554,000
• Lisa Demuth: $490,000
• Mike Lindell: $353,000 in just weeks
• Scott Jensen: $384,000
• Tim Walz (before quitting): nearly $6 million — with $3 million still sitting in the bank to hand off to the machine.
They burned it on consultants, lobbyist dinners, self-promotion books, and “strategic” ads. All to “motivate the base.”
What did that money buy on caucus night?
GOP gubernatorial straw poll (non-binding, statewide results as reported/finalizing on mngop.com):
• Total votes cast statewide: ≈ 17,000–18,000 (consistent with reports of ~17,000+ conservatives participating, out of millions eligible)
• Lisa Demuth: leading with ~31–32% (e.g., ~5,643–5,751 in various partial/final counts)
• Kendall Qualls: ~25–27% (~4,505–4,564)
• Mike Lindell: ~16–17% (~3,085–3,137)
• Scott Jensen: ~6–8% (~1,136 or similar)
• Phillip Parrish: 704 votes — a remarkable grassroots achievement for a campaign that put message before money, built on sweat equity, integrity, and fiscal discipline. Our team punched far above our weight, earning real support in pockets across the state (like 26 votes in Olmsted County, 26 in Becker County, and steady showings in places like Goodhue, Nobles, and more). No big-money machine, no PAC floods — just honest people responding to a clear, no-nonsense call for real change.
• The rest (including every other candidate) split the crumbs, with many in single digits or low hundreds.
DFL side: They bragged about “historic turnout” of at least 30,000 attendees — and Amy Klobuchar “won” with ~79% in their straw poll (no full statewide vote breakdown released yet).
Total real people who showed up for the very first organizing step of the 2026 governor’s race?
Maybe 45,000–50,000 across both parties combined.
U.S. Bank Stadium holds 66,000–73,000.
One Vikings game crowd is bigger than the entire “enthusiastic base” these million-dollar machines could drag out after a full year of fundraising.
Minnesota has 3,750,940 registered voters (Secretary of State count, growing since).
Eligible adults: over 4.2 million.
That means the donor class + consultants + insider networks + media hype couldn’t motivate even 1.3% of registered voters to show up at the very first meetings of the cycle.
The straw polls? Pure theater. A fake narrative the political class will spin as “momentum.” 17,000–18,000 activists in church basements and school gyms pretending to speak for 3.75 million Minnesotans.
This is not democracy.
This is a private club that has hijacked our state.
Meanwhile, the 80% — the working poor, the paycheck-to-paycheck families in Kenyon, Dodge Center, Hibbing, Rochester, Bemidji, and every small town and suburb — keep the lights on, pay the taxes, feed the kids, and watch their wages get eaten by inflation, property taxes, and the same fraud scandals that stole hundreds of millions under the last administration.
We have all had enough of the lies and the theater.
I am Phillip Parrish.
From Kenyon, Minnesota.
No donor-class war chest.
No consultants writing the script.
No PAC strings.
Just $5,411 raised in 2025 — sweat equity, grassroots, real people.
My team and I did amazingly well with 704 votes in the GOP straw poll because we put message before money. We set the standard for fiscal discipline and integrity — no waste, no fluff, just straight talk about ending the grift, protecting hardworking Minnesotans, and restoring real leadership. Our value added? We punched so far above our weight that the machine is trying to ignore us and bury us. But 704 real votes from everyday people prove they can’t hide the truth forever.
The machine’s tiny grip is the divine confirmation we needed: the emperor has no clothes.
The donor class will never fix the system that made them rich and powerful.
They are the system.
The only way anything changes is if the true majority — the hardworking 80% who actually pay the bills — finally stands up and removes them.
We don’t need their permission.
We don’t need their money.
We need each other.
It’s time to empower the real majority to rise up.
Enough is enough.
Let’s end the charade in 2026.
Phillip Parrish for Governor
@phillipcparrish
(The numbers don’t lie. The people are waking up. Share this far and wide.)
(One empty stadium vs. one full Vikings game. The donor class couldn’t even fill the former after millions spent.)
(Tens of thousands in scattered rooms across the state — that’s their “base.”)
(This is who stands with the real majority — not the machine.)
Let’s go. The 80% are ready.
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