Newt Gingrich says he has six times as many Twitter followers as all the other GOP presidential hopefuls combined, and he’s right: His 1.3 million followers trumps even Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann, who has more than 67,000 followers. But a new analysis by a tech company shows that all is not as it seems: Only 8 percent of those followers are “actual people,” with the rest made up of spammers, business accounts and private or anonymous users.

Three days ago, The Marietta (Ga.) Daily Journal published an interview with Gingrich that detailed how he was going to overcome the negativity that has surrounded his campaign. Of course, there was some media bashing involved. But Gingrich also referenced a Politico article that gauged candidates on their Twitter presence.

“And it says, ‘now it’s true that Gingrich has 1.3 million followers and Bachmann only has 59,000, but she’s getting more new people every week.’ It turned out I have six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined, but it didn’t count because if it counted I’d still be a candidate; since I can’t be a candidate that can’t count,” Gingrich told the Daily Journal. “So we’ve been a little bit like a sailing ship in the middle of a hurricane in which we are sailing straight into the teeth of the media, and that slowed us down.”

And, if you visit Gingrich’s Twitter page, it clearly states that he has (as of 11:00 CST) a total of 1,326,093 followers — well above all the other 2012 GOP candidates.

Unfortunately, recent analysis by PeekYou, a New York-based search company, identified the large gap between perception and reality last week during a testing session for its soon-to-launch service, PeekAnalytics, in which the company compiled a “Followers Report” on all 2012 candidates.

The service looks at and identifies a “consumer ratio,” or the percentage of Twitter audience that is identified as a “consumer” versus businesses, private/anonymous and spam accounts. An average range is about 30 to 60 percent human, depending on the type of account. But Gingrich’s account was at 8 percent — the lowest the team had seen by more than five percentage points.

“We have seen some pretty low consumer ratios in our testing, but Newt Gingrich’s was the lowest we had ever seen,” said Michael Hussey, chief executive and founder of PeekYou. “At first, we actually thought it might have been a bug on our side, but a quick manual look at the data showed our analysis was true.”

What the ratio means, acording to Hussey, is that Newt’s true follower count is only about 8 percent of his total — or 106,055 actual people. Further analysis by PeekYou showed that of those roughly 100,000 real people followers, about 60 percent are male, 40 percent are over the age of 35 and 60 percent have only about 100 connections on Twitter.

To make matters worse for Gingrich, a former staffer told Gawker that “Newt employs a variety of agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them.” The former staffer estimated that 80 percent of the accounts set up by the agencies were fake.

After campaigning over the last month on social media, Rep. Michele Bachmann secured enough votes from followers to be included in TIME magazine’s list of the top 100 most influential people of 2011. Controversial conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh wrote the profile on Bachmann for the magazine, and Bachmann is the only 2012 hopeful to make the list.

Here’s Limbaugh’s review of Bachmann:

I don’t mind telling you that I’m a great admirer of Michele Bachmann’s. Far from being the fringe outlier depicted by the mainstream media — and all too often by some on the right — she is a strong spokeswoman for unapologetic conservatism. She is neither extreme nor unreasonable, which is why her philosophy has resonated with grass-roots conservatives. She is unafraid to speak out against the crushing debt crisis we face. She is energized, rather than deterred, by the caustic criticism she constantly endures.

Michele, 55, had ambition from the get-go. A stay-at-home mom of five children and 23 foster kids, she ultimately became a tax attorney, small-business owner with her husband and political firebrand who runs rings around her opponents. If she were liberal, she’d be celebrated from the mountaintops. But she’s conservative. So because she is smart, talented and accomplished and a natural leader — not to mention attractive — the left brands her as a flame-throwing lightweight. They underestimate her at their own risk.

Bachmann may have pushed for inclusion, but in a statement she said she’s “humbled to learn of my selection and grateful to be named among such a variety of notable people affecting our world.”

“My inclusion on this list is a reflection of the growing voice of everyday Americans who desire to preserve and further the liberty on which our great country was founded,” she added.

In a Facebook message on Thursday morning she was more pointed.

“While Democrats may call us extreme, we know our Tea Party values reflect the best of America — being included on TIME’s list is a welcome affirmation,” Bachmann wrote. “Click ‘like’ if you agree with Rush Limbaugh that the Left underestimates us at their own risk.

Bachmann campaigned hard on Facebook and Twitter to get included on the list. TIME ran a contest among readers who could vote from a list just shy of 200 figures. Over the last few weeks, she send out reminders urging her supporters to vote her up the list.

“Today is the last day to take a stand in the 2011 Time 100 Most Influential Poll,” she wrote earlier this week. “Show liberals & the mainstream media that constitutional conservatives are influential. “Like” this if you’ll consider supporting me.”

And on Twitter her campaign team wrote, “Michele is an American leader. Tell Time’s editors she belongs on their 100 list http://ti.me/gWwngy #TIME100″

Bachmann finished 45th on the list with 12,889 votes.

—RT Rybak, Minneapolis Mayor

—Rep. Tony Sertich, House Majority Leader, D-Chisholm, District 5B

—Tony Sutton, state GOP chair

—Tom Freeman, House Republican Caucus

—Tom Horner, Independence Party candidate for governor

—Rep. Erin Murphy, D-St. Paul, District 64A

Got a politician you think we should be following on Twitter? Let us know at @MnIndyLIVE.

Follow @andrewromano all week.

Also: yaks!

—Rep. Paul Thissen, (DFL-Minneapolis), District 63A

—Rep. John Lesch (DFL-St. Paul), District 66A

—Independence Party

—Rep. Laura Brod (R-New Prague), District 25A

— Kevin Watterson, public affairs director, House Republican Caucus

—Minnesota Department of Agriculture

As some are tweeting about guns, God and green power, anticipation builds for the start of the GOP State Convention. But as one Republican candidate looks forward to seeing “many of you there,” one group won’t be allowed inside, the citizen videojournalism site The UpTake.

—Mary Franson, Republican candidate for Minnesota House, District 11B, via Outstate Politics

—Secretary of State Mark Ritchie

—Andy Cook, Communication Specialist, GOP Caucus

—Rep. Laura Brod (R-New Prague), District 25A

—Sean Nienow, Republican candidate for state Senate, District 17, Cambridge

—Craig Westover, conservative columnist/blogger

—Travis Burton (D-Jordan), candidate for state Senate, District 35

—Minnesota AFL-CIO

—Gene Waldorf, independent candidate for Congress, 7th Congressional District

—Rep. John Lesch (DFL-St. Paul), District 66A

—U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota)

—Lizz Winstead, Daily Show co-creator and Minneapolis resident

—Sean Nienow, Republican candidate for state Senate, District 17, Cambridge

—Terry Pearson, Republican candidate for state House, Inver Grove Heights

Photo: mikeparry.com

Mike Parry kept Minnesota’s Senate District 26 in the Republican column Tuesday, winning a plurality of the vote in a special election that pitted him against DFLer Jason Engbrecht and Roy Srp of the Independence Party.

Parry won with 43.0% of the vote to Engbrecht’s 36.5% and Srp’s 20.3%. Nearly 11,500 ballots were cast.

Revelations of Twitter messages on Parry’s account that called President Obama a “Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man” and linked Democrats to pedophiles didn’t dissuade a plurality of voters who braved the cold Tuesday to back the Republican.

Because the special election was to fill a vacancy left by Republican Dick Day, who retired to lobby for Racino Now, Parry will have to savor his victory in a hurry. He must run again next November to retain the seat — and then again in 2012 due to redistricting.

Parry, Engbrecht and Srp each gained the most votes in one of the three counties, parts of which make up the district. Engbrecht took his home county, vote-rich Rice, but only barely: 1,772 votes to 1,726 for Parry and 263 for Srp.

Srp won in Waseca county, home to the city he’s mayor of (also Waseca), with 1,055 votes, for 46%. Parry was second there with 715 (31%). Engbrecht had 514 (22%).

Where Parry cleaned up was Steele County, where he gained 2,502 votes, or 46%. Engbrecht had 1,907 (35%), Srp 1,016 (19%).

The results signaled that “2010 will be a great year for Minnesota Republicans” to state GOP Chair Tony Sutton, who added, “I look forward to electing more like minded fiscal conservatives in November.”

As voters were still at the polls, a Governing magazine blog called the contest “a not uninteresting state Senate special election” — interesting in that, had Parry won, it’d go down as possibly the first election in the country “where a Twittergaffe actually cost someone an election.” Continued blogger Josh Goodman:

The biggest reason I’ll be watching this race, though, is that I’m curious in the political environment coming after the Massachusetts special election. Are Democrats doubly despondent or was Scott Brown’s victory a wake-up call for them?

There was not much doubt about the national implications of the Southern Minnesota triumph from Sutton, who tweeted “1st Scott Brown, now Parry, next up Victory in Nov!”

Parry himself stayed silent on Twitter, as he had for five days leading up to the election.

Clockwise from upper left: Dick Day, Roy Srp, Mike Parry, Jason Engbrecht

A classic Minnesota three-way election is underway today in Senate District 26, with DFLer Jason Engbrecht, Republican Mike Parry and Independence Party candidate Roy Srp vying to replace Dick Day. And classic Minnesota January weather returned just in time for the vote.

Day, a Republican in his sixth state Senate term, condemned his constituents to a cold day at the polls when he resigned effective Jan. 8 to work as a lobbyist for so-called “racino” legislation allowing casino gambling at racetracks.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty ordered a special election for Jan. 26. On Jan. 25, Pawlenty ordered the National Guard to help with a blizzard that swept across southern Minnesota.

Senate District 26, which includes Faribault, Owatonna and Waseca (map pdf), escaped the very worst to the west, but state Hwy. 13 through Waseca was closed overnight. Road and weather conditions had improved by morning Tuesday.

Still, campaign volunteers faced a task that might be better described as thaw-out-the-vote.

Turning blue?

District 26 voters have historically favored Republicans, according to Smart Politics, and that’s true as well of special-election voters statewide over the last few decades.

But the district has been trending Democratic, with two DFL representatives making Day the district’s only Republican at the legislature at the time he resigned.

On a hurry-up timetable to fill the empty seat, DFLers endorsed Engbrecht, a St. Olaf College physics professor and Faribault school board member, while Republicans chose Parry, a former member of the Waseca City Council. Srp, Waseca’s mayor, gained the Independence Party nod.

Engbrecht and Parry raised more campaign funds, but given his job, Srp started with a higher public profile. Parry was forced to apologize for messages posted at his Twitter account, including one in which he termed President Obama a “Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man” and another linking Democrats and pedophiles.

Each has earned the backing of leaders and notables in their respective parties — U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for Parry, former U.S. Rep. Tim Penny for Srp, and U.S. Sen. Al Franken for Engbrecht.

Photo: mikeparry.com

Mike Parry, the Republican candidate running to fill the seat of Sen. Dick Day in the District 26 special election, denied he erased any updates on his Twitter account and defended a tweet in which he called President Barack Obama a “Power Hungry Arrogant Black Man.” To that description, he added “angry,” as well.

“I know specifically about what you’re talking about — the tweet that I had sent using my opinion and fact,” Parry told the Waseca County News on Tuesday. “My opinion is that our president is arrogant and angry. The fact is that he is a black man. Now if the Democratic Party and the liberals want to take my opinion and the fact and mix it together and use it to bring a bad light about me and keep them away from discussing the real issues they can do that all they want. They’re grasping for straws.”

Another tweet that raised some questions was one on May 6 which asked, “what’s with Dems and Pedophiles?” That tweet appears to coincide with the passing of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, which the religious right often referred to as the “Pedophile Protection Act.”

Parry denied that he wrote the tweet, according to the Waseca County News.

“I would think that’s wrong. If it’s on my account I wouldn’t know how that one got on there,” he said. He also said he did not erase any tweets.

Sen. Dick Day, who retired from his seat to become a lobbyist for state-sponsored gambling interests, endorsed Parry on Tuesday.