The initial U.S. Republican presidential primary debate for the 2024 election garnered an audience of 11.1 million viewers on Fox News Wednesday night, according to
Nielsen ratings agency. This figure falls significantly short of the record set in 2015.
In addition, an extra 1.7 million viewers watched the prime-time debate on Fox Business Network, as reported by Fox, bringing the total viewership to 12.8 million.
The forum featured eight prominent Republican presidential candidates. However, the absence of the leading candidate in the field, former President Donald Trump, contributed to a lack of significant audience engagement.
Instead of participating in the debate, Trump chose to engage in a pre-recorded interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson. The interview was posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, and garnered more than 74 million views, as per platform statistics.
Nonetheless, the actual duration viewers spent watching the pre-recorded interview on the site remains unclear. X's view counts encompass individuals who briefly scrolled past the video or watched only a few seconds of it, in addition to those who viewed the entire interview. It's possible for some viewers to be counted more than once if they accessed the video at various times or on different devices.
The debate, which unfolded at the Fiserv Forum in downtown Milwaukee, attracted fewer viewers than the 2015 Republican prime-time debate on Fox News, which garnered 24 million viewers thanks to Trump's captivating style.
Nevertheless, the recent debate's viewership was marginally higher than the 12.5 million who tuned in for the Jan. 28, 2016, debate that Trump skipped, also aired on Fox News. Furthermore, it outperformed the Republican presidential primary debate aired on March 10, 2016, on CNN.
The eight participating candidates included Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, former biotechnology investor and executive Vivek Ramaswamy, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.S. Senator Tim Scott, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum.
To qualify for participation, candidates needed to meet specific thresholds in national or state-level opinion polls and obtain donations from a minimum of 40,000 unique contributors. Additionally, they were required to sign a pledge affirming their commitment to support the eventual Republican nominee.
The subsequent Republican primary debate is scheduled at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in September. More debates are expected, with an October face-off likely to occur in Alabama, according to a source familiar with the Republican National Committee's operations, which managed the Wednesday night debate.
The initial contest in the quest for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden is the Iowa caucus, scheduled for January 15, 2024. Photo by Clemens v. Vogelsang from Liechtenstein, Wikimedia commons.