Ratings for the fourth Republican presidential debate held on Wednesday dropped to the lowest numbers so far this primary season with a 47% decrease in viewership from the previous debate.
With the party’s frontrunner, former President Donald Trump, skipping each of the GOP debates, viewership has consistently fallen since the first Republican faceoff held on August 23 on Fox News, which attracted 12.8 million viewers. The second debate, held a month later on Fox Business, drew 9.5 million viewers, and the third debate on NBC was watched by 7.5 million people. The downward trend continued Wednesday night as 4.1 million people tuned into the most recent Republican debate on NewsNation, Axios reported.
While the debate marked the lowest ratings for this Republican primary cycle, it set a record for NewsNation, an outlet that debuted in 2021. NewsNation attracted 1.6 million people to its coverage of the debate, the largest audience in the network’s young history, according to Nexstar Media Group, which owns NewsNation. Another 2.5 million people watched the debate on the CW’s simulcast, another subsidiary of Nexstar Media Group.
“NewsNation was incredibly honored to host last night’s debate, and we are very pleased that so many viewers tuned-in and watched,” said Sean Compton, the president of Networks for Nexstar Media. “This debate represents a remarkable achievement for a cable news network that is just barely three years old. We’re very proud of the NewsNation team, the great job done by the moderators, and the overall production. In the end, the real winners last night were the nation’s voters.”
The NewsNation debate featured a narrowing field of Republican candidates, with only four candidates qualifying for the stage. Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly, Washington Free Beacon Editor-in-Chief Eliana Johnson, and NewsNation anchor Elizabeth Vargas moderated the debate, which showcased Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Wednesday’s debate ratings came up just shy of the debate last week between DeSantis and Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) that was moderated by Fox News host Sean Hannity, which garnered nearly five million viewers. The NewsNation debate did, however, beat out Hannity’s town hall with Trump that aired on Tuesday and attracted 3.2 million viewers.
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Hours after the fourth GOP debate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, had finished, CNN announced that it will host two more debates in January, one in Iowa on January 10 — five days before the Iowa caucuses, and another in New Hampshire on January 21, just two days before the New Hampshire primary.