J.D. Vance’s vice presidential nominee acceptance speech drew 5 million fewer viewers than Mike Pence’s speech in 2016.
Deadline reported:
Viewership for the Republican National Convention rose slightly on its third night to 18 million, on the night that Sen. J.D. Vance gave his first speech as the vice presidential nominee, according to Nielsen.
The viewership compares to 17.3 million who watched the third night of the convention in 2020, when then-Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD.
What the ratings have made clear is that the Republican Party isn’t attracting viewers. Nearly 14 million of the viewers who watched Vance’s speech were over age 55. If night three of the convention follows the same pattern as the first two, the bulk of the audience will have come from Fox News. Vance’s speech barely drew a millionish viewers each on CBS, NBC, and ABC.
The American people don’t seem interested in anything that Trump and the Republican Party have to say.
Democrats could view this fact two ways. Democrats should see the Trump/Vance ticket as historically unpopular and weak, and Democrats should also see an opportunity. The anti-Trump coalition is bigger than Trump’s base. If Democrats can get their act together, this is a very winnable election, no matter how much the Trump campaign tells themselves that the election is over and that they are going to win in a landslide.
Trump appears to have no momentum, and even less interest from the broader electorate, so if Democrats can get their heads on straight, they could be in a position to win.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association