A Friday report from The Hill claimed that the ratings for Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night were 21 percent lower than Hillary Clinton’s in 2016.
According to the report, Biden drew the highest ratings of the DNC as a whole, pulling in 21.8 million views on television networks. But the numbers are a drop from Clinton’s viewers as well as a 38 percent dip from the 34.9 million viewers Donald Trump drew with his 2016 acceptance speech for the Republican Party’s nomination.
Per The Guardian , the Democrat used his address to take aim at Trump and his administration’s purported failure to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
“While I will be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president. I will work as hard for those who didn’t support me as I will for those who did. That’s the job of a president. To represent all of us, not just our base or our party. This is not a partisan moment. This must be an American moment.”
Biden’s remarks were the shortest since Walter Mondale’s in 1984.
Despite drawing lower ratings than Clinton or Trump, Biden’s address was generally well-received. As The Inquisitr reported, Fox News host Chris Wallace, Dana Perino, and Laura Ingraham praised the statement, which came in the wake of months of the Trump campaign attacking his opponent’s fitness for the presidency.
In addition, while speaking to Ingraham, Donald Trump Jr. was pressed to admit that Biden provided an effective oration.
As reported by The Guardian , Republican strategists also showered Biden’s address with praise. Mike Murphy, a critic of Trump, said on Hacks on Tap that Biden “knocked it out of the park.”
“It was so authentic to who Biden is, and … it caught the mood of the country, which is unity, steady, competence, ‘We can rise above this.’”
During an appearance on Fox News, Karl Rove, a GOP strategist who worked in George W. Bush’s White House, called Biden’s speech “very good.”
CNN called Biden’s statement “career-defining” and said his “smooth performance” may have rendered the Trump campaign’s attacks on his fitness a “miscalculation.” Nevertheless, the publication noted that the effectiveness of the Democrat’s remarks would only become evident in November when Americans vote on the former vice president or the incumbent president to guide the country through the unprecedented times of the pandemic.
Trump is set to deliver his own statement next week at the 2020 Republican National Convention, which is planned to be held at the White House.