Earlier it was reported by the insufferable Jon Karl from ABC News that Biden had won the ratings fight over last night’s dueling town halls:
SIREN! The Biden Town Hall on ABC drew 2.3 million more viewers than the Trump town hall on NBC. There is nothing @realDonaldTrump cares about more than ratings. https://t.co/03OMGhEVLM
— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) October 16, 2020
But that was based on early Nielsen data.
The full ratings are out and Trump ended up with higher ratings than Biden by about a million viewers:
🚨🇺🇸 CONGRATULATIONS President @realDonaldTrump
President Trump Beat Biden by over 1M!
Sorry @brianstelter
Biden on ABC 13.9
Biden 2.94M live streams
TOTAL 16.84M for BIDENTrump on NBC properties 13M
NBC Live Stream 2M
CNBC (2 live streams) 2.8MTOTAL FOR TRUMP 17.8M pic.twitter.com/HwmykW285q
— Cable News Watch (@CableNewsWatch) October 16, 2020
This is why you wait before declaring victory. I should note that one of the live streams we posted here was from CNBC, so take heart that you helped put Trump over the top!
But at the end of the Biden did get good ratings and one might wonder why so many tuned in. Mark Levin proffered a smart theory on this a few hours ago:
I’m sure the backbenchers will repeat this but … as a friend pointed out to me, Biden’s ratings were slightly higher at his town hall event because many expected he’d be asked about the email bombshells. Of course, that didn’t happen.
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) October 16, 2020
