Democrats Draw Bigger Crowd: DNC Averages Over 20 Million Viewers on First Night, Outpaces Last Month's RNC

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Night 1 of the Republican National Convention averaged just 18.31 million viewers

Democratic National Convention 2024
(Image credit: Getty Images)

If you can really judge the health of an election campaign based on relative crowd sizes, Presidential candidate Kamala Harris is off to a good start, with night 1 of the Democratic National Convention averaging 20.025 million viewers and 15.003 households, according to Nielsen.

Both benchmarks compared favorably to night 1 of the Republican National Convention on July 15, which averaged 18.130 viewers and 13.2 million households.

Kicking off live on  ABC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, PBS and other outlets, Monday nights DNC broadcast extended into the wee hours and culminated with what was effectively a goodbye speech for President Joseph Biden.

Night 1 of the DNC also compared favorably with the first night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, which averaged 15.338 million viewers. (Nielsen has a fully ratings report on that viewership performance, as well as July's RNC TV ratings.

The RNC event culminated on July 18 with lengthy, rambling appearance by Republican nominee Donald Trump. It averaged 25.381 million viewers across networks. 

Daniel Frankel
Daniel Frankel

Daniel Frankel is the managing editor of Next TV, an internet publishing vertical focused on the business of video streaming. A Los Angeles-based writer and editor who has covered the media and technology industries for more than two decades, Daniel has worked on staff for publications including E! Online, Electronic Media, Mediaweek, Variety, paidContent and GigaOm. You can start living a healthier life with greater wealth and prosperity by following Daniel on Twitter today!