Newly released TV ratings for Kamala Harris’ speech at the Democratic National Convention will have Donald Trump seething.
That’s because Harris, using metrics that combine viewership from seven networks that carried her nomination acceptance speech, earned a rating of 15 while Trump’s Republican National Convention address last month was just 12.3.
That’s a 22 percent difference, reported Michael Mulvihill, an analyst at Fox who first shared the figures. In the case of primetime TV, that difference means millions more tuned in to watch Harris take the stage.
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Kamala Harris celebrated with her husband Doug Emhoff after her big speech. Thursday was also their tenth wedding anniversary.
Brendan McDermid/ReutersThe final night of the DNC averaged 26.2 million viewers across 15 networks, with Harris’ speech bringing in 28.9 million viewers, according to industry research firm Nielsen. Night four of the convention was the most viewed, with viewership up 30 percent from the previous nights. (Exactly how many of those viewers were expecting Beyoncé remains unclear.)
Trump himself was among those watching. He posted a bizarre “play by play” of Harris’ speech to Truth Social, where he nitpicked the specifics of his opponent’s words. After she left the stage, Trump made equally unhinged calls to Fox News, who cut him off after 10 minutes, and to Newsmax.
Trump has long been obsessed with ratings, going back to his days as a big name in reality TV. Ratings were even top of mind for Trump last weekend when Rolling Stone reported he told aides there was no chance the RNC’s “tremendous” viewership numbers could be topped by the DNC.
Melania Trump made the trip to Wisconsin last month to stand alongside her husband on stage at the RNC.
Mike Segar/ReutersThat prediction proved to be wrong, with the DNC besting the RNC’s viewership totals for each day.
On Wednesday, for example, Nielsen’s data showed the RNC attracted about 17.9 million viewers on the night that featured a primetime speech from JD Vance. Democrats pulled in 11 percent more on the third day of the DNC, which included a speech from Tim Walz.
The first two nights of the conventions had similar disparities. The opening night of the DNC had 20 million viewers, while the RNC pulled in 18.1 million. For day two, 20.8 million people tuned into the DNC, while just 14.8 million flipped on the TV to watch Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis take the stage.
Likely rubbing salt in the wound for Trump was the reported top market for Harris’ speech on day four: West Palm Beach, Florida—next door to his estate at Mar-a-Lago.
