Though it’s too early to tell if President Obama will exceed Mitt Romney’s one-point convention bump in the polls, the Democrats are already beating the Republicans in more trivial contests. Nielsen ratings are in for the first night of the Democratic convention, and according to the Associated Press, 26.2 million tuned in to see Michelle Obama’s stunning speech. Ann Romney’s address matched Michelle Obama’s ratings from 2008, but both of those spousal speeches only drew 22.3 million viewers. Romney shouldn’t be too hard on herself, since the First Lady was even more popular than President Clinton — on Twitter, at least.
TV ratings aren’t available yet for the former president’s lengthy address, but Politico reports that Obama peaked at 28,003 tweets per minute, while Clinton only hit 22,087 TPM. The First Lady’s remarks generated about twice as much Twitter chatter as the peak moment of the entire Republican convention, which (somewhat surprisingly) was Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech, scoring 14,289 TPM. Though Clint Eastwood’s heavily discussed chat with an empty chair immediately spawned a number of memes, Twitter reports that it ranked behind Marco Rubio’s Romney introduction, coming in third with 7,044 TPM.
On Twitter and TV, Michelle Obama has set the bar high for her husband, though he’ll almost certainly beat her numbers, even without a dramatic rain-drenched speech. Still, just to be sure he’ll win the battle for bragging rights at home, he may want to leak the news that his speech will contain a secret message about the Pattinson-Stewart breakup.
