The vice-presidential debate between JD Vance and Tim Walz drew 43.1 million viewers on Tuesday night, significantly fewer than the face-off between the vice-presidential candidates in 2020, according to Nielsen.
The debate in 2020, between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence, drew 57.9 million viewers. That ranked as the second-most-watched vice-presidential matchup since 1976, the year Nielsen started keeping such records.
Tuesday’s debate was also a significant drop-off from the presidential debate last month between Ms. Harris and former President Donald Trump. That event drew 67.1 million viewers.
Still, Tuesday’s debate will rank as one of the most-watched live events for the year. Vice-presidential debates have averaged roughly 46 million viewers going back to 1976, according to Nielsen.
CBS News hosted the debate, which was simulcast by rival broadcast networks and several cable networks. Viewers who tuned in mostly stuck around for the whole thing, according to Nielsen. For instance, 6.6 million people watched the debate between 9 and 9:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC. By 10 p.m., ABC averaged about 6.3 million viewers. The other broadcast networks — CBS, NBC and the Fox broadcast network — had similarly steady viewership totals over the duration of the event, according to Nielsen.
CBS had the largest audience of any network, bringing in 9.6 million viewers. Fox News led all cable networks with 7.9 million viewers. MSNBC averaged 4.9 million viewers and CNN was in third place among cable networks with 3.3 million.
The most-watched vice-presidential debate was in 2008, when Sarah Palin faced off against Joe Biden, drawing a staggering 69.9 million viewers. The lowest-rated came in 1996 when Al Gore debated Jack Kemp before a television audience of 26.6 million people. Tuesday’s number practically tied the 2004 debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards, which had 43.6 million viewers.
Most of the audience for Tuesday’s debate was from viewers over the age of 55 (29.7 million viewers), Nielsen said.
The overall audience was surely bigger than the number Nielsen released Wednesday. Nielsen’s data does not include people that watched the debate via websites or social platforms.
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