Wednesday night’s second Republican primary debate without former President Donald Trump saw viewership drop by more than 25 percent compared to the first debate held last month, preliminary data from Nielsen shows.
While the first GOP debate without Trump captured 12.8 million TV viewers, less than 10 million watched the second debate, according to Nielsen. Just 9.3 million viewers tuned in for the debate across Fox News, Fox Business, and Univision, marking a 26 percent decline in viewers from last month’s debate.
Trump, who is leading by as many as 50 points in the polls, is not participating in the GOP debates due to his polling advantage. Instead of attending Wednesday’s debate, Trump addressed striking autoworkers in Michigan.
As Breitbart News reported:
“I want to begin this evening by saluting these truly great Americans who do not get the credit they deserve,” Trump said.
The tone of Trump’s discussion of autoworkers was very different from what listeners heard from the Republicans at the official GOP debate in the Reagan Library in California.
At the opening of the GOP debate, Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) was asked about the strike by the United Auto Workers union seeking better wages and working conditions for its members. He recently praised Ronald Reagan for his decision to fire air traffic controllers in 1981, drawing a parallel with the current UAW strike. One of the debate moderators asked in Scott would fire the striking autoworkers.
Trump’s campaign has already announced the former president will not participate in the third GOP debate in Miami in November. A trump spokesperson called on the RNC to “immediately put an end to any further primary debates.”
“The RNC should immediately put an end to any further primary debates so we can train our fire on Crooked Joe Biden and quit wasting time and money that could be going to evicting Biden from the White House,” Trump senior advisor Jack LaCivita told Politico.
Wednesday night’s debate had fewer viewers than every single GOP primary debate held during the 2016 cycle, as all 12 of those debates had more than 11 million viewers.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at
