Pence-Harris debate draws more than 50M viewers, up 26 percent from 2016

Wednesday night’s debate between Vice President Pence and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris drew 50.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, marking a 26 percent increase from the 2016 debate between Pence and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). 

Fox News topped the seven major broadcast and cable networks with 11.315 million total viewers. ABC was second with 9.405 million, followed by CNN’s 7.31 million and MSNBC’s 6.67 million.

NBC was fifth with 6.55 million, while CBS attracted 5.18 million viewers and Fox-TV registered 4.1 million.

Four years ago, the debate between Pence and Kaine drew 37.2 million viewers. In 2012, the showdown between then-Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) delivered 50.2 million viewers.

The most-viewed vice presidential debate of all time occurred in 2008 when Biden debated then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) before more than 69 million viewers. 

Last week’s chaotic debate between President Trump and Biden, now the Democratic presidential nominee, scored more than 73 million viewers, which marked one of the most-watched in history but still 11 million viewers short of the 84 million who turned in to see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump battle for the first time in September 2016.