The Harris-Trump Debate Could Set An Audience Record

The presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, scheduled for Tuesday, could be the most watched debate to date. 

ABC News will host the debate with David Muir and Linsey Davis as moderators. For Donald Trump this will be his seventh presidential debate (including last June’s debate with Joe Biden) more than any other candidate. For Kamala Harris it will be the first.

There are a number of reasons a record audience could happen, according to Forbes. 

A renewed interest in the election with Kamala Harris replacing Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee. Historically, the first presidential debate is the most watched. The possibility this could be the only debate between Harris and Trump. Also, three of the four most watched debates involved Donald Trump. Furthermore, the opportunity to stream the debate on a number of platforms and devices (both measured and unmeasured). The lone 2020 vice- presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence is the second most watched debate to date.

The AP reports an estimated 51.3 million people watched Biden and Trump in June. But that was before many people were truly tuned into the election, and the potential rematch of the 2020 campaign was drawing little enthusiasm. Tuesday's debate will almost certainly reach more people, whether or not it approaches the record debate audience of 84 million for the first face-off between Hillary Clinton and Trump in 2016.

Muir's “World News Tonight” has led the evening news ratings for eight years, making him effectively America's most popular newscaster. Many nights “World News Tonight” has a bigger audience than anything on prime-time television.

One secret to his success has been ABC's efforts to craft an apolitical image for him. Tuesday's audience will be his biggest ever — including people largely unfamiliar with Muir because they seek news elsewhere — and it's for a political event in polarized times.

Davis has a lower profile, though she hosts ABC's nightly streaming newscast, fills in for Muir and has moderated presidential nominating debates in the past. Many will be seeing her in action Tuesday for the first time.

The most watched presidential debate was between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on September 26, 2016. It was the first of three debates between the candidates and averaged 84 million viewers across 13 networks measured by Nielsen. It was also the first debate to exceed 70 million viewers in 36 years. The debate aired opposite an NFL Monday Night Football game on ESPN (Atlanta vs. New Orleans), resulting in a ratings decline of 36% compared to the corresponding game in the previous season.

In addition to C-Span, the audience excluded a number of streaming platforms on various devices that went unmeasured. After some calculations, in an interview NPR’s David Folkenflik had noted, “If you look at the live streams of seven different major outlets including places like Al-Jazeera, ABC News, NowThis news, The New York Times, Univision, Fox, a couple others — that was in excess of 35 million views. They're not counted identically to a television viewer, but 35 million people watched at least part of the live streams of the debate that way.”