An estimated 67.1 million people tuned in to watch the presidential debate between Kamala Harris and President Donald Trump, up 31% from the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden that ultimately led to the president dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.
The debate was produced by ABC News but aired on 17 networks, according to the Nielsen Co. The Trump-Biden debate in June was watched by 51.3 million people.
Tuesday’s viewership fell short of the previous presidential debate record of 84 million viewers when Trump and Hillary Clinton first faced off in 2016. The first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 was watched by 73.1 million people.
Nielsen data showed significant increases among younger and middle-aged viewers, with 53% more adults aged 18-49 watching the Harris-Trump debate than those who watched the Biden debate.
Among cable TV viewers, Fox News was the most popular, with 9.1 million tuning in to watch the channel known for its favorable coverage of President Trump.
Harris was widely seen as the winner of the debate. A CNN quick poll of debate viewers found that 63% said she was a better candidate than Trump, compared with 37%. Before the debate, those voters were split 50-50 on who should win. In the CNN poll, 96% of viewers who supported Harris said she was a better candidate, compared with 69% of those who supported Trump.
Although the Trump campaign officially declared victory, some of his aides privately acknowledged that he was unlikely to have persuaded undecided voters to support him, people familiar with the matter told the Guardian.
In terms of viewership, the controversy fell between the series finales of “Seinfeld” (76.3 million) and “Friends” (52.5 million).
Minutes after the polls closed, Taylor Swift endorsed Harris-Waltz to her 283 million Instagram followers in a post that included a link to the government’s voter registration website, Vote.gov. In the hours that followed, the site saw about 338,000 new visitors, a General Services Administration spokesperson told MSNBC.
Swift’s endorsement is likely to have the biggest impact on Americans under 35, as roughly 30% of that demographic say they are more likely to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift, according to a Newsweek poll. The poll found that 18% of voters said they were “likely” or “very likely” to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift, while 17% said they were unlikely.
There are currently no scheduled debates between the two presidential candidates, but Harris’ campaign has called for one and Fox News Channel has publicly floated an alternative: CBS will air a vice presidential debate between Tim Waltz and J.D. Vance on October 1.
Tuesday’s debate attracted a lot of attention from the start, not only because the election is so close, but also because the last presidential debate set off a chain of events that led to Biden withdrawing from the race.
While CNN chose not to correct any incorrect statements made by the candidates during the Trump-Biden debate in June, ABC instead took issue with comments Trump made about abortion, immigration, the 2020 election and violent crime.
