Donald Trump and Joe Biden clashed for the final time on live television in last night’s second presidential debate, which by all accounts was somewhat more watchable than the first.
However, early numbers put it behind the first debate by around 21%. Last night’s debate garnered 21.4 million viewers across ABC, CBS and NBC in the fast nationals. At this same stage, the first debate had tallied over 28 million total viewers across those three broadcast networks, plus Fox (which aired “Thursday Night Football” this time around). The largest debate from the 2016 cycle had over 45 million viewers in the fast national numbers.
ABC is currently on top of the broadcast pile, scoring around 8.8 million viewers inn the 9-11 p.m. timeframe in which the debate took place. NBC isn’t all that far behind with 8.1 million, while CBS is currently a distant third at this stage with around 4.6 million total viewers.
The first Trump-Biden debate drew 73.1 million total viewers all told, while the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton four years ago was watched by a total of 84 million people. The latter still represents the largest audience ever for a presidential debate. It remains to be seen whether this debate will overtake the first from this cycle or that Trump-Hillary mark once the cable news networks and more accurate numbers become available. This story will be updated later in the day as those numbers come.
Prior to the 2016 election cycle, the most watched debate was the sole 1980 sparring session between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, which drew around 81 million pairs of eyeballs. In the 2012 cycle, the most watched debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney drew just over 67 million total viewers.
As for the content of last night’s debate, it was largely more coherent than the first, partly because the candidates’ microphones were muted when the other was speaking, which allowed them to speak largely uninterrupted. Once again, the two rivals clashed on key issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, race and climate change.
The debate was moderated by NBC News’ Kristen Welker, and took place at at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn.