Approximately 67.1 million people tuned in to watch the recent presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. This was a significant jump from the June debate, which prompted President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race.
The debate was organized by ABC News and broadcast across 17 different networks, according to Nielsen. In comparison, the Trump-Biden debate in June attracted 51.3 million viewers.
While this latest viewership number falls short of the record for a presidential debate—set in 2016 when 84 million people watched Trump’s first debate with Hillary Clinton—it does exceed the 73.1 million who viewed the first Biden-Trump debate in 2020.
Many observers believe that Harris significantly outperformed Trump during the debate. As a result, Trump and his supporters have sharply criticized ABC moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis for their performance. The moderators fact-checked Trump in real-time, correcting him on four statements.
At this moment, there are no other debates planned between the presidential candidates, although there have been discussions about it. Fox News Channel has publicly extended an invitation to host a debate, while CBS is set to hold a vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance.
The stakes for Tuesday’s debate were notably high, not only because of the upcoming election but also due to the fallout from the last presidential debate, which resulted in Biden’s withdrawal from the race after a widely criticized performance.
Responses to how ABC managed the debate tend to reflect the political leanings of viewers. For instance, MSNBC commentator Chris Hayes praised the ABC moderators on social media, describing their performance as “excellent.” Conversely, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro responded by harshly criticizing them, indicating a divide in perception.
While CNN did not issue any corrections during the June debate between Trump and Biden, ABC took a different approach by challenging Trump on statements he made regarding abortion, immigration, the 2020 election, and crime rates.
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David Bauder reports on media-related topics for the Associated Press. You can follow him on Twitter at http://x.com/dbauder.
