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Klobuchar’s Fox News Town Hall Beats Competing Programming

Fox News 5/8

Mike Brest Reporter
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Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s Wednesday town hall on Fox News beat out the competing programming and nearly doubled the viewership of her recent town hall on CNN.

Klobuchar’s event, which was moderated by FNC’s Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier, garnered 1.6 million viewers and 235,000 in the 25-54 demographic, according to early Nielsen Media Research. Comparatively, MSNBC, who had Ari Melber and Chris Matthews competing with the town hall, averaged 1,482,000 viewers and 206,000 in the age demo.

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Erin Burnett came in last for the hour-long town hall from 6:30-7:30 p.m., with only 759,000 viewers and 199,000 in the target audience.

Klobuchar has participated in two previous town halls, both of which occurred on CNN. The first one took place in February, with 1.1 million viewers with 298,000 in the key demographic. Her more recent town hall on the network took place last month and she was one of five Democratic presidential candidates to have a town hall on the network that night. That event had 869,000 viewers. (RELATED: MSNBC And Fox News’ Normal Nightly Lineup Beat CNN’S Five Town Halls)

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 07: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) speaks at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers annual legislative conference May 7, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Her town hall on Wednesday marked the fourth most-watched town hall of the election cycle. (RELATED: Fox News Blows CNN, MSNBC, Out Of The Water In Aftermath Of Mueller Report)

Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders participated in the highest-rated town hall on Fox News and it had nearly 2.6 million viewers. The next highest-viewed town hall was California Sen. Kamala Harris and that was on CNN, and the third was former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has not yet officially announced his candidacy.

South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand are scheduled to participate in town halls on Fox News later this month.

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