Nielsen’s preliminary ratings data now reportedly indicates that ABC News’ broadcast of the inaugural presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday attracted nearly 58 million viewers.
The debate between President Biden and Trump in June, which attracted 51.3 million viewers, was eclipsed by the highly anticipated confrontation, which drew 57.7 million viewers across ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox, and CNN.
On Tuesday, ABC News, which hosted the debate, attracted 18.3 million viewers.
Fox, Fox News, and Fox Business, which are owned by Fox, followed with a total of 13.7 million viewers.
CBS attracted 5.9 million viewers, while NBC attracted 9.7 million. MSNBC and CNN respectively attracted 6 million and 4.1 million viewers.
Prospective voters were anxious to observe how Harris would compare to Trump in the wake of President Biden’s disastrous performance, which served as the impetus for the 46th President to forgo a second term and transfer power to his vice president.
Despite the Harris-Trump debate’s substantial viewership, it was unable to surpass the 73.1 million viewers who viewed Biden and Trump’s inaugural presidential debate, which was moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News four years ago.
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