Donald Trump is not always the ratings draw he considers himself to be. The GOP presidential candidate, now trailing Ted Cruz in a recent national poll, saw his Wednesday sit-down on MSNBC outrated by both a CNN Town Hall with multiple Republicans and a Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly-less episode of The O’Reilly Factor.
Between 8 and 9 p.m. ET, MSNBC averaged 341,000 viewers in the adults 25-54, putting it behind both CNN (629,000 demo viewers) and FNC (373,000 demo viewers). It was obviously a boost from MSNBC’s typical showing in primetime. The network also climbed to 1.4 million viewers.
In the news demo, CNN was the easy winner on Wednesday. With Anderson Cooper moderating discussions with Ben Carson, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the network was also a competitive No. 2 in total viewers — 2.06 million viewers to FNC’s 2.32 million viewers. As for FNC, the network bested Trump without any candidates and a substitute in guest host Eric Bolling.
The relative ratings fatigue for Trump comes as he falls behind Ted Cruz for the first time in a national poll. Per NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, 28 percent of GOP voters now back Cruz. That’s above the 26 percent favoring Trump.
