The campaign season’s first Democratic presidential primary debate, hosted by CNN on Tuesday, drew a record audience for Democratic debates, but still fell far short of viewership seen in the two recent Republican debates, according to a release from CNN using Nielsen Fast National ratings data.
The event pulled in a total of 15.3 million viewers, according to the release, which noted that the previous record for a Democratic presidential debate was held in 2008, and had 10.7 million viewers. That debate was hosted by ABC, and featured current Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and President Obama, who was a senator at the time.
But while the Tuesday night debate set a record for Democratic debates, its viewership was still much lower than two Republican debates hosted separately by Fox News in August and CNN in September.
Fox’s debate drew 24 million viewers while CNN’s got 23 million. Both debates are believed to have received a boost in public interest by billionaire businessman and former reality TV star Donald Trump.
