Donald Trump and Kamala Harris’ debate drew more viewers than Trump’s debate with Joe Biden, early viewing figures show.
And many of those viewers were in the battleground states that will decide the November election.
Tuesday’s debate, produced by ABC News but simulcast on multiple broadcast and cable networks, drew an estimated 57.75 million viewers across the big four broadcast networks, CNN, Fox News, Fox Business and MSNBC.
That’s about 6.5 million more people than the final count from the June 27 debate between Trump and Biden in Atlanta.
Viewers who watched Trump and Harris online have not yet been counted.
The Donald Trump-Kamala Harris debate attracted some 57.75 million viewers across the big four networks, CNN, Fox News, Fox Business and MSNBC.
Many of the viewers were in key states, according to a Fox News reporter who had the ratings figures: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia (the site of the debate), West Palm Beach (where Trump lives), Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, New York, Kansas City, St. Louis and Providence.
The audience for Tuesday’s debate was average-sized.
In 35 televised presidential debates since 1960 (there were none in 1964, 1968 and 1972), the average audience has been about 59.1 million viewers.
One exception was the record 84 million viewers for the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Two debates between Biden and Trump in the 2020 election averaged 68.05 million viewers.
At the conclusion of Tuesday night’s debate, Harris’s team immediately offered to schedule another one for October.
Harris was widely seen as the winner. During the showdown, she repeatedly provoked Trump and irritated him when she talked about the size of his rallies, his criminal prosecutions and the fact that other world leaders don’t like him.
Trump, for his part, said he was “less inclined” to participate in another one after praising his own performance.
“Well, I’d be less inclined to do that because we had a great night,” Trump said in a telephone interview with Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning.
And in a post on his Truth Social account, Trump said Harris is demanding a debate rematch because she was “beaten so badly” and compared her to a boxer begging for a rematch.
The former president, a fan of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, cited an unnamed poll that showed him as a big winner over Harris, even though other early polls by CNN and DailyMail had shown her as the winner of the fight.
“In the boxing or UFC world, when a boxer is defeated or knocked out, they stand up and yell, ‘I DEMAND A REMATCH, I DEMAND A REMATCH!'” Trump posted online. “Well, it’s no different with a debate. She was beaten badly last night. All the polls have us WINNING, in one case, 92-8, so why would I do a rematch?”
Trump complained about the network that hosted the event and the moderators, and even suggested without evidence that his rival saw the questions in advance.
“We won the debate. We had a terrible, terrible network,” he told Fox, again criticizing ABC for its real-time fact-checking of some of his statements.
“I think they were terrible. They should be ashamed. I mean, they corrected me over and over again and I said what I said was largely correct or I hope it was. But what they said was absolutely wrong.”
Many of the Trump-Harris debate viewers reside in key states
Your browser does not support iframes.
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump met again in New York on Wednesday for the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks; from left: Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump, JD Vance
Trump said they “refused to correct” Harris’s erroneous statements. Moderators chimed in after her own remarks on January 6, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and abortion.
“The other one, you know what she said. And they refused to correct it. I even complained a couple of times. Why don’t they correct them? Look, they should have corrected it six or seven times. She told a blatant lie. Another one is Project 2025. You know it has nothing to do with me,” Trump said.
