J.D. Vance’s vice presidential candidate acceptance speech drew 5 million fewer viewers than Mike Pence’s speech in 2016.
Reporting deadline:
Ratings for the third night of the Republican National Convention, which also featured Sen. J.D. Vance’s first speech as a vice presidential candidate, rose slightly to 18 million viewers, according to Nielsen.
That compared with 17.3 million viewers for the third night of the 2020 convention, when then-Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland.
The ratings clearly show that Republicans are not attracting viewers. Nearly 14 million people who attended Vance’s speech were over the age of 55. Vance’s speech barely drew millions of viewers on CBS, NBC and ABC.
The American people seem uninterested in anything Trump and the Republican Party have to say.
Democrats can look at this fact two ways. Democrats should see that the Trump/Vance vote is historically unpopular and weak, and Democrats should see opportunity. The anti-Trump coalition has a larger base than Trump. If Democrats can get their act together, this will be a very winnable election, and no matter how much the Trump campaign tells itself the election is over, they will win in a landslide.
Trump seems to have no motivation and even less interest from the broader electorate, so if the Democrats can wake up, they may win.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of Society of Professional Journalists and American Political Science Association
