Kamala Harris Town Hall Powers CNN To Primetime Demo Win Monday Night

A day after Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) attracted more than 20,000 people in Oakland for her official presidential campaign announcement, the California senator’s CNN town hall forum — the first of the 2020 election season — pulled in a huge audience and helped power CNN to a primetime victory.

According to Nielsen, CNN led cable news in the key 25-54 demographic during the 8 PM to 11 PM primetime hours Monday night, drawing 527,000. The network also averaged a higher-than-normal 1.569 million total viewers. Fox News drew 2.688 million viewers overall and 493,000 in the key demo. MSNBC pulled in 2.585 million total viewers and a demo audience of 476,000.

Airing at 10 PM and ending at 11:06, the town hall led all of cable news in the demo with 708,000 and captured a total audience of 1.954 million. According to CNN, the event was the most-watched town hall forum for a single candidate in cable news history.

In other ratings news for the day, MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show topped cable news in total viewership with 3.289 million and placed second in the demo (633,000). Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight took second place in total viewers (2.948 million) and fourth in the key demographic (534,000).

Fox’s Hannity was third in the 25-54 metric (549,000) and fourth overall in total audience (2.860 million). FNC’s The Five finished fifth in total viewers (2.559 million) while CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time placed fifth in the demo (444,000).

Following the Harris town hall, CNN Tonight led the 11 PM hour in the key demo with 396,000 and attracted 1.142 million viewers overall. MSNBC’s The 11th Hour topped the hour in total viewership with 1.675 million.