According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day ratings, the town hall event drew 562,000 total viewers and 136,000 viewers in the cable key demographic among adults 25-54 in an effort to divert Republicans away from Republican presidential rivals Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in 2024.
The town hall did not, as expected, captivate the same 3.3 million viewers who tuned in to CNN's town hall with former President Trump, which was moderated by Kaitlan Collins and became the network's second most watched town hall with a single candidate since 2016. The demo audience was also down more than 80% from the 781,000 that watched the Trump event.
With 3.47 million viewers, the network's 2020 town hall with Joe Biden remains the most watched town hall for a single candidate.
The Nikki Haley town hall aired on CNN from 8:00 p.m. ET to 9:30 p.m. ET. CNN had the highest demo viewership among the cable news networks, with 136,000 demo viewers, while Fox News Channel's "Life, Liberty and Levin" at 8:00 p.m. ET and "Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy" at 9:00 p.m. scored a combined demo viewership of 67,000 in the timeslot, and
During the 8:00 p.m. ET to 9:30 p.m. ET timeslot, Fox News had 1.16 million total viewers, more than twice as many as CNN, which had 562,000 total viewers. During the town hall, MSNBC lag behind CNN in total viewers, with 456,000.
During Sunday's primetime, the town hall also increased CNN's overall viewership. With an average of 122,000 viewers in the demo, CNN had the highest demo viewership of the night, followed by Fox News with 64,000 viewers in the demo and MSNBC with 34,000 viewers in the demo.
