DNC night one ratings beat RNC by 21 percent despite late Biden speech

The first night of the ongoing Democratic National Convention in Chicago had signficantly better ratings than the opening of the Republican National Convention last month, according to overnight data.

The DNC had 11.4 percent of sampled households watching in 44 major metro areas across seven networks on Monday, compared with the RNC’s 9.4 percent rating, a difference of over 20 percent, according to TV analyst Michael Mulvihill, president of insights and analytics at FOX Sports, FOX Entertainment, and Tubi.

In a statement on X, the analyst warned that the data was just preliminary.

“That DNC lead will likely narrow in the final national viewership and could even be erased, though that seems unlikely,” he wrote. “The overnights reflect 44 major metro areas.”

Some running the DNC surely were concerned that delays caused Joe Biden to give his highly anticipated convention speech at 11:25 pm on Monday, well past when some voters in East Coast battleground states like Pennsylvania were in bed.

That didn’t seem to make a huge difference, according to Mulvilhill.

“The late-running DNC show did not help viewership for President Biden,” he added on X. “The Biden portion rated slightly (-2%) lower than the pre-Biden portion and the President’s forceful speech lost audience as the hour grew later. Not ideal but not disastrous either.”

The initial, encouraging signs for the DNC come as Donald Trump is reportedly concerned Kamala Harris’s Thursday speech to close out the convention will outshine Trump’s RNC send-off.

Two sources close to the Trump campaign told Rolling Stone the former president has brought up the topic multiple times, though he’s sure to mention the “tremendous” viewership of his own nomination speech, which