Election Night Ratings: Which Network Had the Highest Viewership?

Meaghan Darwish
12 Comments
Whit Johnson for ABC Nightly News
ABC / Craig Ambrosio

Election Night 2024 has come to pass, and as viewers anxiously awaited to see which candidate would reign victorious — Kamala Harris or Donald Trump — another race was taking place on TV with networks competing for coveted ratings.

The big networks, including ABC, CBS, and NBC, preempted their usual Tuesday night TV slate for live election coverage offering up-to-the-minute updates on the progress of Harris and Trump’s respective campaigns for the presidential office, with some coverage running late into the night and continuing the next morning.

So, which network came out on top in the ratings department for the night? Was it NBC? ABC? CBS? MSNBC? Fox News? The answer might surprise you.

Your Voice Your Vote

ABC / Craig Ambrosio

According to network totals, ABC came out on top with 5.665 million viewers overall commanding the largest groups in two key demos with adults 25-54 totaling 2.156 million and adults 18-49 totaling 1.819 million. Trailing with 5.318 overall viewers was NBC which pulled in 2.115 million in the 25-54 demo and 1.762 million in adults 18-49.

CBS came in third with 3.490 million overall viewers among which were 1.207 million in adults 25-54 and 1.027 million in adults 18-49. Rounding out the big four was Fox with 2.141 million viewers with 896K in adults 25-54 and 671K in adults 18-49. When it comes to the network breakdown this is the first time in 16 years that ABC has led all three demos during election night.

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Overall, primetime coverage for the election averaged around 36.6 million viewers across the big four and the three biggest cable news channels CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. The total is a steep drop from 2020’s 50.7 million who tuned into those same news outlets. On the cable side of things, Fox News led the night with 9.8 million viewers tuning in followed by MSNBC’s 5.5 million and CNN’s 4.71 million.

Where did you watch election night news coverage? Was it one network or did you rotate channels as the results unfolded? Let us know in the comments section, below.

ABC World News Tonight With David MuirCBS Evening NewsFox News TonightNBC Nightly News with Tom LlamasDonald TrumpJD VanceKamala HarrisTim Walz



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  1. B

    Blue8Ball

    News Nation, Cuomo did a terrific job of shepherding the night in a fair, neutral, non-cheerleading way.

    11 1

    1. G

      GoldCorn

      I agree. I’m not always a Cuomo fan but overall News Nation did a great job and DDHQ was ahead of every other decision desk.

      5

  2. T

    Tara

    I absolutely love News Nation!

    8 1

  3. C

    CyanCandy

    Kept Fox News on the big tv all night. On my laptop, I had Megyn Kelly’s live coverage via YouTube. On my iPad I switched between Dan Bongino ‘s live feed with Dave Rubin’s feed and checked out PBD broadcast too. As you can see I am conservative and have taken up politics in my retirement years. This process was amazing and I am so proud to be an American. It was a a glorious day today here in NYC.

    7 3

    1. G

      GoldPuzzle

      Fox had over 10 million. This website is full of misinformation.

  4. C

    CyanCandy

    Newsmax had great and honest coverage

    5 2

    1. G

      GoldPuzzle

      Like them or not, Fox was 100% honest. CNN and MSNBC didnt call it for many hours after Fox called it. I knew Trump won around 1130pm based on the research I did and what I was seeing. Hours after Kamala went home cause she lost, CNN and MSNBC was still acting like the race was still a toss up. They didnt report comments coming from the Kamala camp.

  5. A

    Antonio Montealegre

    I was at work and the TV in the breakroom was on the Fox broadcast network which was airing the Fox News channel so that's what I saw...

  6. G

    GoldCorn

    Amazon with Brian Williams watched it in its entirety

    3

  7. B

    BlueBandAid

    CNN

    3 6

  8. C

    CyanPopcorn

    Rotated between ABC and CBS. Mostly ABC

    5

  9. G

    GreenBone

    MSNBC data analyst was superior. C-span was fairly neutral and unbiased. Twitter spaces were remarkably more quick to project the winner and more interactive, engaging. Fox seemed to be lackluster compared to other years.

    1 7