During what will almost certainly be a change election year, the ratings from CNN’s Tuesday night debate show that the 2016 energy, passion and interest resides primarily on the Republican side. A total of just 15.3 million viewers tuned into last night’s Democrat debate compared to the 24 million who tuned into the first Republican debate that aired on Fox News in August. That’s a -42% drop.

Last night was a record for a Democrat debate, up from around 10 million in 2008.

Passion on the Republican side is such that a Republican debate that included the seven candidates who did not qualify for the primetime debate brought in 6.1 million.

Interest in the Republican presidential election is such that all-time cable records are being broken, not just debate records and not just cable news records.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC