Debate With Biden-Harris Showdown Draws Bigger TV Audience

(Bloomberg) -- The second night of Democratic presidential debates attracted a bigger audience, with viewers seeing Senator Kamala Harris square off with former Vice President Joe Biden.

The program, aired by NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo on Thursday evening, averaged 18.1 million viewers across the three networks, NBCUniversal said on Friday. That was a record for a Democratic debate and eclipsed the 15.3 million from the previous night.

The second installment featured 10 candidates, including some of the party’s biggest stars. In addition to Harris and Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, took the stage.

The audience topped the previous highest-rated Democratic presidential primary debate in 2015 by 2.6 million total viewers.

Still, the ratings were dwarfed by the first Republican debate of 2015, when 24 million viewers tuned in to Fox News to watch Donald Trump spar with moderator Megyn Kelly.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gerry Smith in New York at gsmith233@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.