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Trump Beats Clinton in Convention Speech Viewership

Donald Trump
Donald Trump / AP
July 29, 2016

Two million more viewers tuned in to watch Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland than watched Hillary Clinton’s acceptance speech at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia.

Trump’s address had 30 million viewers while Clinton’s had 28 million viewers, The Hill reported.

The Hill noted that these totals include only the top six cable networks and do not include viewer totals from C-SPAN and PBS, which are disproportionately watched by Democrats.

The Democrats had better overall viewership throughout the conventions than the Republicans, but Trump was a bigger draw at the end of the conventions.

Trump's speech was by some accounts the longest acceptance speech in modern convention history, clocking in at about an hour and fifteen minutes.

Nielsen will release further numbers on Friday, which should also include Spanish language networks and smaller networks.

A recent poll by Reuters showed Clinton beating Trump by five percent in a two-way matchup, but they are tied when Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are included in the race. Another poll by the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Times shows Trump leading Clinton nationally by approximately six percentage points. That poll was conducted on July 28.