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CNN hosted a town-hall palooza on Monday night with back-to-back town halls featuring five candidates for President. Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders had the highest ratings of any of the town halls last night, but Sanders’ FOX News town hall from last week beat all the ratings this week. Ratings, however, don’t always indicate who won. Who do you think won the CNN town hall last night? After you read this article, let us know who you think won in the poll at the end. Was it Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, or Amy Klobuchar?
Kamala Harris, whose CNN town hall was held at 10 p.m. Eastern, took the lead with 1.4 million viewers, Deadline reported.
Bernie Sanders’ town hall, just an hour before hers at 9 p.m. Eastern, was in second place with 1.3 million viewers.
Next were Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren, whose live viewers tied. Buttigieg’s town hall was at 11 p.m. Eastern and Warren’s was at 8 p.m. Eastern. Despite the late hour for Buttigieg’s, he tied Elizabeth Warren’s viewers with 1.2 million.
Last was Amy Klobuchar, whose 7 p.m. town hall clocked in with 869,000 viewers.
But none of the numbers were big enough to beat Bernie Sanders’ town hall numbers for his Fox News appearance. He had 2.6 million viewers for a town hall that was from 6:30-7:30 p.m. on Fox News.
Bernie Sanders has often said that many of the people running for President are friends. This was very apparent backstage during the town halls, when Pete Buttigieg’s husband Chasten Glezman Buttigieg posed for a photo with Kamala Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff. You can learn more about what happened and the friendship they’re building in Heavy’s story here.
Right now, Joe Biden (who hasn’t announced his candidacy yet) and Bernie Sanders are pretty much trading places when it comes to who is leading in Democratic polls, Real Clear Politics shares. In April 23 polls by Monmouth and Morning Consult, Biden was in the lead with Sanders second and Harris third. In April 22 polls by the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary, Biden and Sanders were tied in the first and Sanders led strongly in the second. Buttigieg was third in both. Then on April 16, a Morning Consult poll showed Biden ahead, Sanders second, and Harris third. An Emerson poll on April 15 put Sanders in first place, followed by Biden and then Harris. So the two seem to be shifting back and forth frequently, with Buttigieg or Harris most often placing third.
But Harris finished first in the TV ratings from yesterday, followed closely by Sanders. Of course, TV ratings don’t always tell us everything, as ratings can also be affected by the time of the town hall and what other TV shows and events were happening at the same time.
Who do you think won the town hall marathon? Let us know in the poll below.
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