WASHINGTON — Political debates are tricky things for candidates. People running behind the pack hope that the attention gives them the opportunity to catch up. Those in the front would rather skip the whole thing.
The good news for the latter group: People are tuning in far less than they did at the beginning of the 2016 presidential campaign.
New data from Nielsen shows the drop-off in the second two Republican debates. They’re still far more popular than the debates in 2012, but only about half as popular as they were two months ago.
The two most recent Republican debates have been on non-big-name channels. But they’re still drawing only about as much as the Democrats did — and the Democrats didn’t have Donald Trump in the pole position.
Even more interesting is how real-time Google traffic has shifted over the course of the debates. We assume — admittedly without much evidence — that Google traffic during a debate is some indicator of which candidates people are interested in. Google is, after all, the magic answer box to which we all turn. But Google queries about the candidates have dropped even more precipitously than Nielsen ratings. Ratings for the fourth debate were down 44 percent from the first one; Google interest was down 59 percent.
The level of attention is still far higher than it was in 2012. But in 2012, the debates with the highest viewership came in the middle of the process, not at the front end. The peak was in mid-December. We still have a few debates to go, but the Trump-induced fascination that spurred Fox News’ record ratings in the first debate may be gone for good.
Which, ironically, might make Trump fairly happy.
