Vance-Walz debate attracts 20m fewer viewers than 2020 face-off between Harris and Pence

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Just under 39 million people tuned in across eight networks to watch Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz, falling 20 million people short of the audience draw when Vice President Kamala Harris and former Vice President Mike Pence debated in 2020.

Early figures from Nielsen, Fox, and MSNBC showed that CBS — which hosted the debate — averaged 9.14 million viewers, Fox News averaged 7.69 million, ABC News averaged 6.1 million, NBC averaged 5.44 million, MSNBC averaged 4.65 million, CNN averaged 3.18 million, Fox Broadcasting averaged 2.42 million, and Fox Business averaged 255,000, Deadline reports.

In 2020, the vice presidential debate averaged approximately 51 million in early numbers across the same networks. The final numbers showed that 59 million watched the debate, making it the most watched vice presidential face-off since they began in 1976.

Nielsen is expected to provide more detailed numbers later on Wednesday.

The vice presidential debate also drew significantly fewer viewers than this year’s presidential debate between Harris and Donald Trump, which saw 67.14 million viewers across 17 networks tune in last month.

Early polling about the debate’s results found that viewers were largely split on who they thought won the night.

In an average of polls from CNN/SSRS, YouGov/CBS News, Focaldata/Politico, and JL Partners/DailyMail.com, 48 per cent of viewers gave the win to Vance, while 46 per cent thought Walz won.

Apart from responses likely falling along the party lines of the respondents, another possible explanation for the split decision may be that a majority of respondents thought both candidates came across well during the debate.

According to the YouGov/CBS News poll, 88 per cent of respondents felt the overall tone of the event was “generally positive,” with 65 per cent saying Vance came across well, and 74 per cent saying the same of Walz.