Harris-Trump US Presidential debate's 67.1 mn viewers top Trump-Biden

Tuesday’s debate between Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump attracted an audience of 67.1 million US viewers on major TV networks — beating the turnout for President Joe Biden’s ill-fated performance in June.

The host, ABC, led with 19 million viewers, according to a statement Tuesday from the network. The debate was moderated by ABC News’ David Muir and Linsey Davis. 

The contest was viewed as a crucial test for both candidates. Vice President Harris targeted the former president for his felony convictions, his wealth and his role in overturning the federal right to an abortion. Trump complained that fact-checking of his remarks by the moderators from ABC amounted to a rigged debate.

The results ran “contrary to expectations of voter fatigue and anemic viewership,” Ashwin Navin, chief executive officer of data researcher Samba TV, said in an email. 

The debate contrasted with the earlier face-off more than two months ago, when Biden’s mental stumbles raised questions about his fitness to serve a second term. Harris, who took over as nominee, made no comparable blunders.

Trump, trying to make the Biden-Harris immigration policy a key point of his campaign, repeated unfounded, online claims that undocumented migrants in an Ohio suburb were eating people’s pets.

ABC, part of Walt Disney Co., won the ratings race even though the company’s audience may have been limited by a dispute with DirecTV. That service’s subscribers could still watch on other networks.

The June debate between Trump and Biden drew an audience of 51.3 million viewers. The most-watched debate ever was the first between Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, drawing an audience of 84 million.