Harris and Trump on TV: Each Candidate’s Most Watched Appearances

Sometime in the next 36 to 96 hours, the United States will know who its 47th president will be. Polls between Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, and former Republican President Donald Trump, are close, and both have been criss-crossing key states to make final appeals to voters.

What has largely stopped, however, are scheduled TV appearances by either. TV news outlets are still covering speeches and rallies, but — aside from a Harris cameo on Saturday Night Live on Nov. 2 (which was followed by NBC giving Trump equal time in two sporting events the following day, per FCC rules) — Harris and Trump have concentrated on in-person events rather than TV studios in the past two weeks.

Prior to that, however, both candidates took part in a number of media interviews and town halls with voters, along with one debate (plus another for vice presidential nominees Tim Walz and J.D. Vance). None of the media sit-downs came anywhere close to the debates, but several of them gathered sizable audiences of their own. Below is a breakdown of the biggest among them in the final two months of the campaign.

All ratings figures below are same-day tallies from Nielsen from Aug. 26-Nov. 2 and include initial airings only so as to compare like to like as much as possible. The events below include planned appearances only, not news coverage of campaign events.

Debates

Harris and Trump, Sept. 10: A June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden was watched by 51.27 million viewers, on the low side for a debate. Biden’s poor performance led to increased calls for him to end his re-election campaign, which he did in July. He endorsed Harris to lead the ticket, and Democrats fell in behind her. The first — and only, as it turned out — debate between Harris and Trump drew 67.14 million viewers across 17 broadcast and cable outlets, above the historical average of 59.2 million for such telecasts.

Walz and Vance, Oct. 1: The two nominees for vice president faced one another in a CBS News-produced debate that delivered 43.15 million viewers on 15 networks. That’s about 7 percent below the average for past VP debates — and 25 percent below the audience for then-Vice President Mike Pence and Harris in 2020.

Single Candidate Appearances

Here are the eight biggest interview and town hall appearances, ranked in descending order.

Special Report With Bret Baier (Harris), Oct. 16: The vice president’s interview with Fox News anchor Baier drew the largest audience of any campaign interview after the end of the Democratic National Convention. The half-hour interview averaged about 7.8 million viewers, with Baier’s full show that night coming in at 6.7 million — more than twice its usual average.

The First Interview: Harris & Walz, Aug. 29: CNN’s interview with Harris and Walz a week after the Democratic convention — at a time when the media narrative was that Harris didn’t do enough media interviews — brought in 6.31 million viewers, the channel’s largest audience since the June debate (which it produced).

60 Minutes (Harris), Oct. 7: The long-running CBS News program invited both Harris and Trump for interviews, but the latter dropped out (and later complained about the way 60 Minutes edited Harris’ segment). Airing on a Monday instead of its usual Sunday spot, the episode averaged 5.7 million viewers for the hour, and slightly more (5.97 million) for its first half when the interview with the vice president aired.

Gutfeld! (Trump), Sept. 18: Trump’s first appearance on Greg Gutfeld’s late night-in-spirit (but primetime by definition, as it airs at 10 p.m. ET) Fox News show brought in 4.89 million viewers, the biggest audience in the show’s nine-year history.

Hannity (Trump), Sept. 4: A town hall with the Republican nominee on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show drew 4.42 million viewers, making it the biggest of several town hall programs in the post-convention period.

CNN Town Hall (Harris), Oct. 23: The vice president’s appearance with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and Pennsylvania voters came in at 3.33 million viewers.

The View (Harris), Oct. 8, and Fox News Town Hall with Harris Faulkner (Trump), Oct. 16: Both shows aired in the late morning on their respective dates, and both averaged about 3.1 million viewers.