First Democratic debate comes close to breaking ratings record with 15.3 million viewers

The first night of Democratic debates might have been missing key members of the race, but that didn't stop a surprisingly large audience from tuning in.

A total of 15.3 million viewers watched Wednesday night's debate between NBC, MSNBC, and Telemundo, CNN reports. That number comes from Nielsen, although it doesn't factor in those who streamed the debate online.

CNN points out that this figure comes close to breaking the all-time record for most-watched Democratic primary debate previously set in October 2015, when the Democratic debate of that election cycle scored 15.5 million viewers.

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But that debate featured the race's front-runner, Hillary Clinton. Wednesday's debate impressively came close to matching those numbers despite the absence of many of the 2020 candidates who are leading in the polls, especially former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

Even NBC was surprised by this, as executives had privately said they didn't expect more than 10 million people to tune in, CNN reports; their thinking reportedly was that it was too early in the race for there to be such intense interest, not to mention that it's the summer. In the end, they were very happily proven wrong.

Still, these numbers aren't even in the same ballpark as the first 2016 Republican primary debate, which featured President Trump's debate debut and drew a huge 24 million viewers.

Both Biden and Sanders will participate in the second night of debates on Thursday evening, alongside Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg among others. With the presence of these high-profile candidates, it could be that Thursday's debate may match, or exceed, the previous record. It seems that although President Trump dissed Wednesday's affair as "BORING," America disagrees.