Fox News’ Trump Town Hall Outdraws CNN’s DeSantis-Haley Debate

Donald Trump has held a consistently large polling lead over the other candidates in the Republican presidential primary. Head-to-head TV forums for the former president and his two closest challengers Wednesday night mirrored the polls — as well as the usual state of play on cable news.

A Fox News town hall featuring Trump easily outdrew a debate between Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley on CNN. The former averaged about 4.43 million viewers from 9-10 p.m. ET, according to final same-day Nielsen ratings, while the corresponding hour of CNN’s debate came in at 2.7 million. In the core news demographic of adults 25-54, the matchup was closer: Fox News drew 576,000 viewers in that age range to CNN’s 515,000.

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Both networks were well above their usual averages in the hour, but the order of finish was the same as usual, where Fox News regularly outdraws CNN. MSNBC, which typically finishes second among cable news networks in primetime viewers, came in third Wednesday.

For the full two-hour debate, CNN clocked 2.6 million viewers and 541,000 adults 25-54. While that’s much better than the channel’s regular offerings from 9-11 p.m. (which typically average about 600,000 viewers), it also goes down as the least watched debate of the Republican primary, behind the combined 4.21 million viewers for NewsNation and The CW on Dec. 6. Given his front-runner status, Trump has thus far not taken part in any primary debates.

The first state nominating contest, the Iowa caucuses, are set for Jan. 15. The indicted former president is the first choice of about 55 percent of likely caucus-goers, according to the latest Iowa State University/Civiqs poll. DeSantis and Haley are tied for second at 14 percent.

Jan. 11, 3:35 p.m. Updated with final ratings figures for Wednesday.

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