The fourth Republican presidential primary debate has the worst ratings compared to the previous three, though it brought NewsNation its largest live audience since the cable outlet’s founding 2 1/2 years ago.
A total of 4.1 million Americans watched the debate live on TV Wednesday night, according to Nielsen ratings. The debate drew about 1.6 million viewers to NewsNation and 2.5 million viewers to The CW, a sister network of NewsNation that mostly airs entertainment content.
The debate featured three moderators: NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas, former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, and The Washington Free Beacon’s Eliana Johnson.
Only four Republicans participated in the latest debate: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
The first 2024 Republican primary debate, a two-hour showdown among eight primary rivals, was watched by 12.8 million people on Fox News and Fox Business. The second attracted 9.5 million viewers on Fox and its Spanish-language partner Univision.
For the third debate, the viewership dropped to just 7.5 million on NBC, Peacock, and other NBC-owned streaming platforms. By comparison, the third Republican primary debate on CNBC in 2015 attracted 14 million viewers, with then-primary contender Donald Trump drawing a massive audience from the debate stage.
President Trump, citing his overwhelming lead over all other GOP nominees, didn’t participate in any of the four debates. He has stated many times that he is not interested in debating those who are so far behind him in the polls.
“As everyone is aware, my Poll numbers, over a ‘wonderful’ field of Republican candidates, are extraordinary,” the 45th president wrote in August on Truth Social. “In fact, I am leading the runner up, whoever that may now be, by more than 50 Points.”
President Trump also pointed to how Ronald Reagan didn’t attend a 1980 GOP primary debate in Iowa because he felt no need to participate as a frontrunner. Despite losing the Iowa caucus to George H.W. Bush, he eventually won the Republican presidential nomination and evicted President Jimmy Carter from the White House in a landslide.
“Reagan didn’t do it,” he wrote. “People know my Record, one of the BEST EVER, so why would I Debate?”
Despite a lagging viewership, the fourth debate managed to set a record for NewsNation, which only launched in 2021.
In fact, the 1.6 million figure is already 10 times greater than NewsNation’s typical primetime viewership. In November, an average of 149,000 people would tune in for the channel’s most popular primetime show, “Cuomo,” hosted by former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.
For The CW, the debate brought the largest same-day audience for the network since 2018, including nearly 500,000 viewers among adults aged 25 to 54—the network’s key target demographic.
“NewsNation was incredibly honored to host last night’s debate, and we are very pleased that so many viewers tuned-in and watched,” Nexstar Media, the owner of both NewsNation and The CW, said in a statement. “This debate represents a remarkable achievement for a cable news network that is just barely three years old.”
With that said, Wednesday’s debate still didn’t beat the Nov. 30 face-off between Mr. DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, which has been built up for months with a war of words highlighting differences in the Sunshine State leader’s conservative approach and the Golden State chief’s progressive agenda over issues including climate change, gun control, and illegal immigration.
More than 4.7 million people watched the DeSantis–Newsom debate, moderated by Fox News’ Sean Hannity and branded as “The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate.”
The fourth Republican debate did, however, gain more viewers than a town hall with President Trump on Fox News on Nov. 5. That program, also moderated by Mr. Hannity, scored an average of 3.2 million total viewers.
