What Went Down On Night 3 Of The RNC

A personal update: I’m live-blogging tonight from my parents’ house in suburban Philadelphia — Bucks County, in fact, a crucial swing region in a crucial swing state. That’s important not because I’ll be relaying any important intel on the mood in this political battleground, but because my dad is hitting me with rapid-fire questions about everything that comes across the TV — the news, commercials … everything.

So if I seem a little distracted, please have patience. I’m trying to.

To state the completely obvious … tonight, more so than other nights, could reflect what happens when a lot of segments are taped ahead of time as part of a mostly-virtual convention. The GOP runs the risk of looking non-responsive if they aren’t talking about Hurricane Laura, the situation in Kenosha, and so forth.

According to Nielsen, 19.4 million people watched the second night of the Republican National Convention across 11 major TV networks. Those aren’t great ratings by historical standards, but they are better than both the first night of the RNC (17.0 million) and the second night of last week’s Democratic National Convention (19.2 million). And it’s basically the same number that tuned into the second night of the RNC in 2016, making Tuesday night the first night of either convention that didn’t represent a significant ratings drop-off from its counterpart four years ago.