In conversations with allies and aides, former President Donald Trump is trying to project confidence over his ability to hoard attention, telling them that the viewership for his Republican National Convention acceptance speech was "tremendous" and won't be outdone by Vice President Kamala Harris this week. But sources close to the Trump campaign told Rolling Stone that these boasts are often accompanied by prodding over what they predict her ratings will be on Thursday evening, a sign that Trump is worried about losing to Harris on yet another metric besides crowd size and polling.
So far, Trump is one-for-two in convention speech ratings. He drew more viewers than Hillary Clinton in 2016, but lagged behind Biden in 2020. His queries over the 2024 convention speech match-up against Harris come amid his roiling anger over Harris' large crowd sizes, which apparently cuts deep into the confidence of a man who measures his political power by his visible popularity. Trump has insisted that he drew a larger crowd during the insurrection of January 6, 2021 than Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington, while falsely accusing Harris of doctoring photos so that her supporters appear more numerous than in reality.
