US presidential debate attracted 57.5 million TV viewers

NEW YORK: The US presidential debate between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump attracted 57.5 million television viewers across seven TV networks, according to preliminary Nielsen data on Wednesday.

Tuesday night’s event was the first time the candidates in the Nov 5 presidential election had met face to face.

The viewing figure tops the roughly 51 million people who watched Trump debate then-candidate President Joe Biden in June.

It does not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline. Nor does it reflect viewers who watched the debate in bars and restaurants. Final audience data that includes those viewers will be available later on Wednesday.

The record TV audience for a presidential debate occurred in 2016, when 84 million people tuned in to watch Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton debate Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris turned in one of the more resounding debate performances in recent decades on Tuesday night — to the point where Donald Trump’s allies have struggled to locate a silver lining.

Precisely how much the debate could impact the race is an open question, as Dan Balz notes; we’re a very polarized country, and we don’t generally see big and sudden shifts in polls anymore. But small margins can matter greatly in our increasingly tight elections, and Harris clearly helped her cause.

So just how emphatic was her win? And what do the polls suggest about what it could mean moving forward?

We’ve so far seen two instant polls — one from CNN and another from YouGov.

The CNN poll showed Harris winning the debate 63 percent to 37 percent among debate-watchers, while the YouGov poll showed her winning 54-31 among registered voters who watched at least some of the debate, with 14 percent unsure. (Trump has cited his own improbably wide margins in some unscientific online polls — posting a series of them on Truth Social — but those polls don’t reflect the actual electorate.)

Notably, those margins are close to the ones Trump racked up after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27, a performance that ultimately led him to drop out of the 2024 race. Back then, the CNN poll showed Trump winning the debate 67-33, while the YouGov poll showed Trump winning 43-22.

Taylor Swift, a self-declared “childless cat lady” and one of the world´s most popular and influential stars, has endorsed Kamala Harris for president of the United States.

Swift broke her silence on Tuesday, voicing support for Harris over Donald Trump, and calling the Democratic candidate a “steady-handed, gifted leader.” “I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” she wrote on Instagram.

The post landed in the minutes following the televised presidential debate that saw the two candidates face off for the first time, which the singer said she tuned in to.

“I´m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” Swift said.