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The 2024 presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump was unsurprisingly a ratings hit.
The ABC News-hosted event drew in 67.14 million viewers, according to Nielsen live-plus-same-day figures, as it aired live from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. That’s up 30.8% from President Joe Biden and Trump’s debate in June, which drew 51.3 million total viewers across all broadcast and cable networks that simulcasted the live CNN event.
As the event’s host, ABC News led the networks with an estimated 19.049 million million viewers, followed by NBC News with 9.7 million, Fox News with 8.67 million, MSNBC with 6.02 million, CBS News with 5.91 million, Fox Broadcasting with 4.74 million, CNN with 4.11 million and Fox Business Network with 287,000.
On the streaming side, viewing on digital platforms including Hulu, Disney+ and the ABC owned television stations apps totaled to 7.4 million viewers, combining with linear viewing to total 26.4 million viewers across linear and streaming, marking the most-viewed live event by hours streamed on Disney+ in the U.S. to date. Notably, NBC News Now reached its largest primetime audience to date, soaring 89% when compared to the previous record on the final night of the 2024 DNC.
Despite gains over the 2024 Biden-Trump debate earlier this summer — which prompted Biden to later drop his bid for president and endorse Harris — viewership for the Harris-Trump debate was down significantly from audiences for the 2020 presidential debates. 73 million viewers tuned in as Trump and Biden went head-to-head for the first time in September 2020, with their second match-up in the 2020 election cycle fell to 63 million viewers.
Final figures for Tuesday’s event, which will include streaming, will be available later Wednesday, and will be updated in this story.
Trump and Harris weighed in on topics ranging from foreign policy and the economy to abortion rights and security at the U.S.-Mexico border.
While ABC News’ rules for the debate noted that candidates’ microphones would be muted when the other candidate was speaking, both Trump and Harris could be heard interrupting each other throughout the 90-minute broadcast.
Tuesday’s ABC News debate may be the final matchup between the presidential nominees. Trump has proposed both a Fox and NBC News debate, but the networks and the Democratic nominee have not confirmed either appearance.
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