Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and one of the country’s most prolific spreaders of election disinformation, announced Thursday that he was running for governor of Minnesota.

A close ally of President Donald Trump, Lindell is best known for promoting the falsehood that voting machines in the United States are often rigged and have flipped elections.

With his polarizing politics, Lindell injects uncertainty into a crowded Republican field that includes Lisa Demuth, the speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives; Scott Jensen, a former state senator and the 2022 Republican nominee for governor; Chris Madel, a prominent lawyer in Minnesota; and state Rep. Kristin Robbins.

They are competing for the chance to challenge Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat and his party’s vice-presidential nominee last year, who is running for a third term.

In an interview with the New York Times, Lindell pledged that he would not back down from his claims about election security, and said they would play a central role in his candidacy. But he also said that other issues — school choice in education, a hard-line stance against illegal immigration, reducing crime in “inner cities” and expanding programs to help with drug addiction — would round out his platform.

“I’m tired of these decisions being made by our government here in Minnesota that don’t help any of us,” Lindell said. He pointed to his record in the private sector: “There’s no one else that can do as good a job as I know I can do, because I’ve had to build businesses, and it needs to be run like a business.”

He repeatedly lashed out at Walz and legislators in Minnesota over the state’s social services fraud scandal, and pointed to the criticism he has faced as evidence he was prepared for the job.

“I can face adversity, and I just think no one else can,” he said.