Democratic New York City Council President Christine Quinn, who is the presumed front-runner in the city’s mayoral election in November, gained 20,000 Twitter followers Thursday night, leading to speculation that she might be dabbling in the purchasing of fake “dummy” followers.
Quinn’s official campaign Twitter account, @Quinn4NY, had 3,400 Twitter followers Thursday. By Friday morning, she had more than 24,600.
Many of Quinn’s new followers have zero tweets to their credit, and many of their Twitter handles are variations of similar names, cityandstateny.com reports.
Quinn has the steadfast support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg after helping Bloomberg revise term-limit guidelines to win a third term in 2009. Quinn previously garnered controversy for hiding millions of dollars in taxpayer money by doling out grants to fake groups that did not actually exist.
Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was sharply criticized by the media for allegedly purchasing campaign Twitter followers during the 2012 primary race.