The second night of CNN’s Democratic presidential debates averaged 10.722 million total viewers, 3.031 million of which were adults aged 25-54, which was a 23% increase over the previous night, which had 8.7 million viewers.
The digital stream also had 3.1 million live starts, according to the network.
The second night, which took place in Detroit, just like the first, included protesters and heated debate between the presidential candidates. In total, 10 candidates debated one another. Sen. Michael Bennet, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former HUD secretary Julián Castro, Sen. Cory Booker, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Gov. Jay Inslee, and Mayor Bill de Blasio were all on stage.
The previous night, ten others debated: Gov. Steve Bullock, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Rep. John Delaney, former Gov. John Hickenlooper, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, Rep. Tim Ryan, author Marianne Williamson, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
The matchups were determined by a live-drawing event earlier this month also on CNN.
The first round of Democratic debates for the 2020 election was hosted by NBC and saw higher ratings, though it is worth pointing out that the NBC debates were shown on a broadcast network, on a cable channel, and online.
The second night of NBC’s debates bested the first by 18%, drawing 18.1 million TV viewers across NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo versus Wednesday’s 15.3 million. Another 9 million checked out the live stream. According to NBCU, the cumulative audience for the two-night debate was 37.1 million viewers.