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Nielsen: Palin Rocked

By: Ben Domenech (Diary)  |  September 4th, 2008 at 03:34 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The Nielsen numbers are out, and wow, they are good. Sarah Palin’s speech, despite being carried on only six channels compared to Obama’s ten, despite the lack of a huge venue or months of hype, was viewed by only a million fewer people than Barack Obama’s Speech o’ the Century.

Via Clayton, a few notable facts: Palin beat Obama in Persons 55+ (reliable voters!) and multi person white households; in the 18-34 demo (Obamas home base) Palin drew 81% of his audience; In the 18-49 demo she drew 88% of his audience; Palin trounced Biden in all categories except multi-person black households. And here’s more from Nielsen itself:

  • The Sara Palin speech generated 37.2 million viewers, just a 1.1 million viewers short of Barack Obama’s record-breaking speech on Day 4 of the Democratic Convention. The Palin speech was carried on only six networks while the Obama speech was carried on ten (including BET, TV One, Univision and Telemundo).
  • Palin attracted a large female audience (19.5 million women, or 4.9 million more than Day 3 of the Democratic Convention).
  • Ratings for viewers 55+ (25.2) continue to be about ten times higher than for teens (2.2)
  • Day 3 for the GOP attracted more Hispanic viewers (1.4 million) than Day 3 of the Democratic Convention (1.2 million), even though Univision and Telemundo did not carry the speech.

That last point is astounding. Even though it’s not a huge number, the fact is that Barack Obama had a ton of built in advantages for his speech – whereas the only one for Sarah Palin is that the media had placed expectations in such a negative way that everyone wanted to tune in (perhaps in hopes of a trainwreck?). And an excellent sign for the level of interest in Palin, and the number of people outside of the Twin Cities who viewed the speech as a defining event for this election.

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  • septembergurl

    insane focus on tabloid trash and over-the-top ranting and attacks on Sarah guaranteed a huge audience for her great speech.

    Hey, thanks, bottom-feeding scum!

  • Swamp_Yankee

    Half way home. I dont even think Palin really resonated until this morning. We are going to see a double digit bounce. I hope it settles into a steady five point lead.

  • Swamp_Yankee

    Half way home. I dont even think Palin really resonated until this morning. We are going to see a double digit bounce. I hope it settles into a steady five point lead.

    • BrianH

      Great news if true!

      • Darin_H
        • Swamp_Yankee

          http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/04/opinion/polls/main4416798.shtml

          • BrianH

            I knew she’d give us a bounce, but this is better than expected!

            The Dems have cut their own throats by attacking Palin!

          • Dave_in_Fla

            I’m not terribly familiar with the track record of the CBS poll, but regardless of internals, assuming that the methodology didn’t change, an 8 point shift does have some validity.

            It was a weekend poll taken the weekend before the Democrat convention, and the weekend after. This means that the second weekend had the entire convention, including Obama’s speech factored in. It also had the Palin selection and the media feeding frenzy as part of the dynamics.

            Now Rassmussen is showing Obama holding onto his 3 point convention bounce (which is a pretty low bounce by historic standards), but the track only has polling numbers from Monday through Wednesday this week (one of those days being Labor Day). It does not include the Palin speech from last night, which has been pointed out to be a huge ratings event. A LOT of people saw it, and today even MORE people are talking about it.

            We should get a pretty good idea on the post convention state of the race by next Tuesday. At that point, the entire Rassmussen daily track will be based on post McCain and Palin speeches, and people will have had time to digest the results.

            I personally expect to see a 3 point McCain lead in the Rassmussen track next Tuesday. If Obama holds his current bounce, it means that the electorate watched McCain and Palin and are rejecting what they hear. If we fall back to a tie, that means that the preconvention state is pretty close to the true feelings of the electorate and we are looking at a slugfest all the way to November.

            But I don’t expect either of these scenarios. Palin will resonate with Middle America (you know the ones that actually vote). As long as McCain comes out as strong as he did at GOPAC, then a significant portion of fence sitters will make up their mind and we will see that historic shift toward the right-center candidate.

          • kyle8

            They are rarely accurate, and they shouldn’t matter as to what a campaign does.

            This is our ticket, the only thing that counts now is campaigning and voting.

  • Pentagon16

    it doesn’t matter if the polls are accurate. We know they are NOT accurate!

    they oversample by at least 3% the real number of democrats in the country. they are using a +9 democratic lead, when the last poll had it a +7 dem lead. that is 2% right there to add to McCain.

    the REAL significance of polls is that the closer we can hang for the longest amount of time, the more:

    it puts pressure on Obama, the more money will flow into the GOP, the more the fat cats will hedge their bets and possibly contribute to McCain, the more media will cover the gaffes of the libs, and the more exposure will be given to what Obama SAYS rather than his campaign bulletins..

    • aaronbg

      n/t

  • Adam_C

    These are comparing Palin’s night to Biden’s night. Palin only had about 25% the number of Hispanics that Obama had. That’s probably due to the lack of Univision and Telemundo coverage on Day 3.

    Still, the overall numbers are crazy. And hopefully everyone was as impressed as the people in the convention hall.

    • aaronbg

      n/t

  • ILLINOIS_CONSERV

    that I live in a state with such a dismal chance of voting republican. I am counting on my good neighbors in Indiana to one again carry the state for the GOP. I hope the good people of PA, MI, and OH follow suit.

    On a somewhat different topic, I hope McCain and Palin revisit the Tony Rezko, Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers connection to Obama. Someone needs to explain to me why does Obama get such a free pass when addressing his relationships with these crooks and cons? Can you imagine the outcry if McCain or Palin attended a racist, radical church for 21 years? They would be absolutely villified. And yet Obama tried to first deny hearing anything deragatory, and when that sounded ridiculous decided to admit that yes he did hear some disturbing comments from Wright. Well which is it Barry? If you are going to lie, at least pick a lie and stick with it. Rudy finally took off the gloves last nite and went after Obama. He knocked him silly before Palin took over and sealed the deal.

  • bs

    for their Palin bashing of the last couple of days. Because of that, Gov. Palin got a MUCH larger viewership than would have occurred had their not been such a stink. In their zeal to destroy her, they accomplished the opposite.

    Idiots. But we’re grateful for their idiocy this time.

    • scottbomb

      My daughter’s mom, who lives in El Paso, told me that McCain is more popular there than Obama. She was shocked because El Paso ALWAYS votes Democrat. This could get very interesting.

  • stars_bars

    palin out-shined mccain. seems like she should take a steo back. her place is behind her new man.

    • civil_truth

      And a poster child for a liberal bigot’s wet dreams about conservatives

  • timeends

    Yep, I heard about it few minutes ago from Kevin James, krla870. 40 MILLIONS! Hooah! She rocks!

  • eyedsman

    sarah kicked ass last night!!!