Election night ratings: Fox News stomps all over competition
Trump returns to the White House in a landslide and made huge gains in traditionally blue Chicago
[This article has been updated. See below.]
Fox News prevailed over its competitors on election night as Donald J. Trump was re-elected as President after a four-year break.
According to Nielsen’s final national numbers, Fox News led all networks – broadcast, cable, and streaming – with 10.32 million viewers, with MSNBC (6.01 million) topping CNN (5.1 million) on election night. Fox News also won handle in the key 25-54 demo.
ABC lead among broadcast networks with (5.9 million), followed by NBC (5.51 million), CBS (3.62 million), and Fox Broadcasting (2 million).
Fox Business nabbed 710,000 viewers, with NewsNation earning 257,000. NewsNation’s coverage was simulcast on some CW affiliates; Nexstar owns NewsNation and The CW.
CNBC aired coverage, but its numbers weren’t reported. Other networks that carried election night coverage include NewsMax, Merit Street, Scripps News, Amazon Prime, Telemundo, Univision, and Sinclair’s CW and My Network TV affiliates through The National Desk.
The time frame measured was from 7-11 p.m. ET (6-10 p.m. in Chicago).
Overall, election night ratings were down across the board with 42.3 million viewers across eighteen cable and broadcast networks from 56.9 million viewers in 2020, a 30 percent decrease. Nielsen also noted 22.6 percent of TV households watched election coverage – the lowest number in 64 years. Chalk up the decline to the emergence of web election night shows, with conservative pundits Candance Owens and Patrick Bet David drawing five million views on YouTube and Justin Robert Young’s Politics Politics Politics live stream also drawing a respectable amount of online viewers.
Despite a major Cook County State’s Attorney Race and a Chicago Public Schools board election, local stations’ coverage was a bit subdued, given there were no Senate races and the U.S. House races were predictable wins as they stuck with network coverage for the most part. WGN had the most extensive coverage but had trouble filling airtime and once again, their seven-member panel was a turnoff. Local ratings were unavailable, but you can correctly guess the numbers were likely down from past years.
As for the election itself, Trump pulled off a political comeback, beating Kamala Harris in the electoral vote and the popular vote by fifteen million, surpassing his 2016 and 2020 totals. Harris lost every swing state she needed to win, including Michigan and Wisconsin as Trump made significant gains. Trump becomes only the second president to serve non-consecutive terms in American history.
Harris even lost ground in traditionally “blue” areas, including Chicago where Trump received 22 percent of the vote, compared to 12 percent in 2016. Trump’s gains were led by the old “Vrdolyak 29” wards on the Northwest and Southwest Sides, in former white ethnic wards where Latinos now dominate. These were places in the 1980s where former Southeast Side 10th Ward Alderman Ed Vrdolyak was extremely popular with constituents for going toe-to-toe with Chicago’s first Black Mayor Harold Washington during “Council Wars” (the modern-day 10th Ward, with a similar demo transition, also saw huge gains for Trump on Tuesday.)
Chalk up Harris’ local struggles to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s unpopularity in Chicago and of other Cook County officials, including outgoing State’s Attorney Kim Foxx and embattled south suburban Dolton Mayor Tiffany Heynard, not to mention lackluster voter turnout in Chicago’s majority-Black wards compared to 2008 and 2012 when Obama won. In Illinois, Harris won the state by only eight points – down considerably from 2020 when Biden beat Trump by seventeen.
In the coming days, we’ll look at how a second Trump administration would impact the media business going forward, and there will be a lot to talk about.
[Editor’s Note: This post was updated on November 16, as the article incorrectly stated Kamala Harris only received 22 percent of the vote in Chicago when it was Trump who did so, up from 12 percent in 2016. T Dog Media regrets the errors.]