In a surprising turn of events, former Vice President Joe Biden garnered more views during his town hall on ABC than President Trump’s.
According to Nielsen, Biden’s town hall averaged 14.1 million viewers as compared to Trumps 13 million. However, Biden’s event was broadcast solely only ABC whereas Trump’s was aired on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
The results have been surprising to nearly everyone. We all know how much President Trump loves talking about ratings and folks in Biden’s camp wonder if these results will upset him.
Following the first presidential debate between President Trump and former Vice President Biden, Trump boasted on Twitter about his ratings.
“HIGHEST CABLE TELEVISION RATINGS OF ALL TIME. SECOND HIGHEST OVERALL TELEVISION RATINGS OF ALL TIME,” the president tweeted. “Some day these Fake Media Companies are going to miss me, very badly!!!”
Leading up to the town hall events on Thursday night, Trump‘s campaign embraced his popular ratings narrative and predicted that Trump would beat out Biden with better ratings. Jason Miller, Trump’s campaign senior manager, said “we’re gonna have a much bigger audience than Joe.”
Joe Biden Tops Trump in Town Hall Ratings
After Nielsen’s data from Thursday night illustrated the opposite, TJ Ducklo, Biden’s campaign press secretary, didn’t hold back when tweeting his thoughts.
“Turns out more people last night were interested in watching a leader with a clear plan to get this pandemic under control and Americans back to work, than the same combative, chaotic liar whose incompetence got us into this mess — regardless of how many channels he was on.”
President Trump has yet to acknowledge the ratings data other than tweeting “Very good reviews on last night’s @NBCNews Town Hall in Miami. Thank you!!!”
Meanwhile, it’s important to note that the Nielsen ratings only measure viewership on televisions. Both town halls were also streamable online on phones, computers, tablets and other devices.
Upcoming is the next Presidential debate. It’s currently set for October 22 when the two candidates will meet on stage together once again, provided everything goes as planned.
