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Members of the media work as Hillary Clinton speaks during the debate Oct. 13. | AP Photo CNN's Dem debate draws a record 15.3 million viewers

The first Democratic presidential debate on Tuesday drew 15.3 million viewers, making it the most watched Democratic primary debate in history.

While the high ratings place it behind the first two Republican debates, it became the sixth most watched non sports cable event in history.

CNN's live stream of the debate also set a record for the network with 980,000 concurrent streams at its peak.

The previous record for a Democrat debate was in 2008, which had 10.7 million viewers on ABC.

The first two Republican debates smashed ratings records, bringing in 24 million and 23 million viewers for Fox News and CNN respectively.

Earlier this week CNN Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist seemed to be tamping down on expectations, telling POLITICO that the audience would be "significantly smaller" than the Republican debates. While it's true the ratings for Tuesday night are smaller, it looks like they are higher than most media watchers and even CNN insiders were predicting.

