Republican Aubrey Immelman has had a record-breaking few days of web traffic, but nothing like DFLer Elwin Tinklenberg. On Saturday Immelman, a political science professor at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, registered as a write-in candidate to run as a Republican for Michele Bachmann’s U.S. House seat. Immelman ran against Bachmann in the primary, earning 14 percent of the vote, but since then his site has remained quiet, getting 20 to 50 hits a day. But this weekend, he saw 150 hits and then another 500 on Sunday. Now he says he’s getting 1,000 each day, likely thanks to a spike in media about his candidacy. He did an interview on Fox 9 on Monday, and Nick Coleman of the Star Tribune featured him today.

“I want this to be a referendum within the Republican party on the kind of leadership or, more pertinently, the lack of leadership that Rep. Michele Bachmann has shown,” he told Fox’s Ellen Galles.

In an email, he wrote, “It’s been hectic for a small, insurgent, one-man campaign such as mine — but nothing like what’s happening at Tinklenberg HQ, I’m sure.” (Tinklenberg has surpassed $810,000 in donations since Friday afternoon.)

On his website, Immelman writes that he’s been “inundated with messages and phone calls of support.” More importantly, donations — something he didn’t accept for the primary — started coming. “[S]tarting Friday night, small contributions began trickling in, typically in amounts of $10 and $20, but with a couple of $50 contributions mixed in,” he told me. He says he’s seen a trickle but not a flood, adding up to “four digits” of funds. Suffice it to say, “it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what Tinklenberg has received.”