On Wednesday, the GOP’s presidential candidates met for a debate hosted by NewsNation, a fledgling cable network. They drew low ratings in absolute terms, but they drew an unprecedented number of eyeballs to the upstart network.
Now, CNN — another struggling network — is inviting the candidates to debate in Iowa next month.
However, an ABC News affiliate has already scheduled a debate… and the Republican National Committee is deciding whether to forbid the candidates from partaking in the CNN event.
1.59 million viewers watched Wednesday’s debate on NewsNation, according to Nielsen data shared with The Hollywood Reporter. Meanwhile, 2.62 million viewers watched the simulcast on The CW, a network owned by NewsNation’s parent company.
All in all, only 4.21 million viewers watched Wednesday’s debate. By comparison, 7.5 million people watched the previous debate via NBC or Peacock. That’s a 43 percent drop.
What’s more, the presidential debate wasn’t even the most watched debate of that week. California Gov. Gavin Newsom debated Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Nov. 30, and that debate reportedly drew 4.75 million viewers for Fox News channel.
However, the presidential debate offered a big bump to NewsNation and the CW. It gained NewsNation the largest audience in its 2.5-year history. The CW reportedly saw its biggest ratings since a 2018 episode of The Flash.
According to one estimate, NewsNation saw its primetime audience increase tenfold that night.
CNN, another struggling cable network, appears to be trying to replace NewsNation’s success.
CNN said earlier in the day that it would host a Jan. 10 debate at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, five days before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, and a Jan. 21 debate at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire, two days before that state’s leadoff primary.
Later Thursday, ABC News and WMUR-TV announced that they would partner for a Jan. 18 debate at Saint Anselm College.
Neil Levesque, executive director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm, told The Associated Press he was not aware of any planning for an event with CNN.
“I have no idea about anything with any other network,” Levesque said Thursday night, referring to the CNN event.
Levesque was quoted in a news release about the ABC and WMUR-TV debate, noting that both Democratic and Republican candidates had participated in debates at the college in every presidential cycle since 2008.
No Saint Anselm official was quoted in CNN’s release about its Iowa and New Hampshire debates, although Drake University — the site of CNN’s Iowa debate — did issue its own news release about that event.
Keith Schipper, the Republican National Committee’s communications director, posted on X that the CNN events “are not RNC-sanctioned debates.” Chris Ager, chair of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, said in a news release that the ABC debate would take place “subject to RNC guidelines.”
To participate in the party-approved debates, the candidates must pledge to forgo all other debates.
According to a person familiar with the plans, the RNC’s Debates Committee is discussing releasing candidates from prohibitions on participating in debates not approved by the party, but that decision has not yet been made. The person was not authorized to discuss the plans publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
A spokesperson for CNN declined the AP’s request for comment Thursday night.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.