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Donald Trump loves bragging about bringing in yuuuge ratings. Back in his campaign’s infancy, it was one of his favorite talking points. "There'd be a major collapse of the race, and there'd be a major collapse of television ratings" if he weren’t in the race, Trump told the New York Times. "It would become a depression in television."
Well, Trump might be disappointed to find out that the ratings are in for the first and second days of the Republican and Democratic conventions — and he lost.
According to CNN’s analysis of the preliminary Nielsen data, the first night of the Democratic National Convention averaged 26 million viewers. The first night of the Republican National Convention, meanwhile, averaged about 23 million viewers.
The same story for the second night, according to CNN host Brian Stelter: The Democratic convention averaged about 24 million viewers, while the Republican convention averaged about 19 million.
This doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about who will win the election. (Polling is, obviously, a much better indicator.) But it can’t feel good for Trump.
