The Democratic presidential candidates smashed a ratings record on Wednesday night, drawing a combined audience of 19.7 million to the latest primary debate, Nielsen said on Thursday.

Shown on NBC and MSNBC from the Paris Theater in Las Vegas, the broadcast was the most watched in the history of Democratic presidential primary debates. It beat the previous record-holder from June, when 18.1 million viewers tuned in to NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo for the second Democratic debate of the current election cycle.

Before the Wednesday debate, viewers’ interest in the Democratic matchups had seemed to level off. Since October, an average of roughly six million to eight million people tuned in for the last five contests, according to the Nielsen ratings.

For some context: Last night’s viewership totals across the two networks outperformed two other live prime-time events this year, the Grammy Awards (18.7 million viewers on CBS) and the Golden Globes (18.3 million on NBC).