TV Ratings: Harris-Trump Debate Draws 67M Viewers, Soars Past June Biden Face-Off

Rick Porter
·2 min read
4

The first (and possibly only) presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump drew a substantially larger audience than a June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden.

Final Nielsen ratings figures for Tuesday’s telecast, produced by ABC News but simulcast on multiple broadcast and cable networks, show the debate drawing about 67.14 million viewers across the big four broadcast networks, CNN, Fox News, Fox Business and MSNBC. That’s almost 16 million more people (a 31 percent jump) than the final tally for the June 27 debate between Trump and President Joe Biden.

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Earlier figures from just eight outlets had already topped the June total, as preliminary Nielsen figures for the big four broadcast networks, CNN, Fox News, Fox Business and MSNBC totals 57.75 million viewers.

Biden’s poor performance in the June debate was a catalyst for him dropping his re-election bid and endorsing Harris a month later.

ABC News produced the debate, and ABC drew by far the biggest audience of any single network Tuesday night with 19.05 million viewers from 9-10:45 p.m. ET. NBC placed second with 10.08 million viewers, followed by Fox News with 9.06 million. MSNBC (6.38 million) edged CBS (6.19 million) for fourth place; then came the Fox broadcast network (4.85 million), CNN (4.39 million), Telemundo (1.16 million), Univision (975,000) and Fox Business (295,000). The remaining 4.7 viewers watched on other outlets.

All figures are for TV viewing only and don’t include streaming, although ABC says an additional 7.4 million people have streamed the debate on ABC News Live via Hulu, Disney+ and ABC-owned stations’ apps.

With the big gains over the June debate, Tuesday’s telecast was above the average for past presidential debates. In 35 televised debates since 1960 (there were none in 1964, 1968 and 1972) prior to Tuesday, the average audience has been about 59.2 million viewers. The all-time record is 84 million viewers for the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016. Two debates between Biden and Trump in 2020 averaged 68.05 million viewers.

Sept. 11, 4:35 p.m. Updated with final ratings figures.

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