Early overnight Nielsen ratings suggest that Thursday’s Republican debate was not just the most-watched primary debate in history — it may have been twice as big as the previous record-holder. The debate on Fox News had a 16.0 household rating between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., according to Nielsen.
Translation: 16% of United States homes with TV sets tuned in.
Fox News usually has 1% or 2% of the household audience.
For the sake of comparison, the highest-rated Republican primary debates in 2011 and 2012 were watched by approximately 5% of households.
The Democratic primary debates in 2008 were bigger, but none of those ever topped 10%.
While there’s no doubt that there’s increased Republican energy in general, there is no way ratings would reach that level without Donald Trump. As a consequence, millions of Americans were treated to unfiltered conservative messages from some of the GOP’s best messengers. It’s going to be difficult for the Democrats to reach a similar-sized audience — at least until they start shelling out tens of millions of dollars for paid advertising. The Left has been pointing and laughing at the GOP ever since Trump surged to the front, but that means the GOP dominates political news — except when Hillary’s email woes surge to the top of Drudge. I’m not sure that’s a good long-term deal for the Dems.