Credit: TLC.

Mitt Romney and company couldn't beat the allure of a self-proclaimed "redneck" family. According to Nielsen overnight ratings, TLC's controversial reality show "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo" drew 2.9 million viewers Wednesday night at 10 p.m. In second place: Fox News' coverage of the Republican National Convention, to which 1.2 million adults tuned in.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, "Honey Boo Boo" scored more viewers in the key 18- to 49-year-old demographic than the RNC coverage on any one of the individual broadcast networks. But, of course, aggregate coverage of the RNC across networks topped "Honey Boo Boo's" numbers.

"Honey Boo Boo," a spin-off of TLC's equally eyebrow-raising series "Toddlers and Tiaras," debuted earlier this month to 2.2 million viewers. Its star is Alana, a 6-year-old pageant queen better known as Honey Boo Boo Child. Among the show's apparent charms: Honey Boo Boo's catch phrases (for example, "A dollar make me wanna holler") and inability to control herself after drinking "go-go juice," a mixture of Red Bull and Mountain Dew.