Still, he maintained in a Time magazine interview the Dallas gathering won the ratings battle anyway.
“We did a convention that had 107 million views, and it stupidly was put opposite the NFL opening, and we got more views,” Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview. “They got 25 million. We got 107. Very stupid thing to do, but we did it. Somebody tell you, some person did it.”
Trump delivered a nearly two-hour address on the convention’s opening night that coincided with the first game of the NFL season between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots.
CNN reported that the Seahawks-Patriots contest drew more than 25 million viewers, significantly more than the roughly three million viewers who watched Trump’s speech.
Most networks decided not to air wall-to-wall coverage of the convention, but Trump’s opening night speech was shown live on Fox News, Newsmax and NewsNation, according to CNN.
A Thursday night NFL game also beat Trump’s much briefer closing remarks on the convention’s second and final night. The unusual midterm convention was Trump’s idea.
His allies have defended the higher figure he cited by highlighting digital streams and clips circulated online. Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft called the convention “a massive success” that energized Republican voters.
Paxton, the attorney general, is locked in a tight race against Democrat James Talarico, a state representative from Austin.
When reporters on Wednesday asked Trump about leaked audio obtained by The New York Times of Paxton blaming the convention for his declining poll numbers, Trump said he hadn’t heard it.
He said the convention helped Republicans, asserting again that the “amazing” gathering was “the most watched thing on television” – including the NFL.