Mike Bloomberg’s town hall on Fox News Channel drew more than 2.4 million viewers, according to early Nielsen Media Research, making it the second-highest audience for a town hall during the 2020 primary season behind Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) town hall on the network last year.
Fox’s 2.4 million viewers outpaced its cable news rivals when the event from Manassas, Va., aired Monday at 6:30 p.m. ET, with MSNBC drawing 1.794 million and CNN taking in 1.18 million.
In the key 25- to 54-year-old demographic sought by advertisers, Fox News drew 426,000 viewers, with CNN second with 375,000 and MSNBC third with 297,000 when the hourlong event aired.
Moderated by “Special Report” anchor Bret Baier and “The Story” anchor Martha MacCallum, the town hall came on the eve of Super Tuesday, a day of 15 state and U.S. territory nominating contests where Bloomberg will appear on the ballot for the first time.
The former New York City mayor and billionaire businessman has spent more than $500 million on campaign ad buys, a move which has helped propel him to third place in the RealClearPolitics index of polls.
Bloomberg holds 16.2 percent support behind Sanders’s 26 percent and former Vice President Joe Biden’s 24.6 percent.
Bloomberg appeared to show no inclination to drop out of the race after Super Tuesday, signaling that even if he doesn’t win any state primaries outright, he still could win the nomination through a contested convention.
“The most likely scenario for the Democratic Party is that nobody has a majority — it goes to a convention where there’s horse trading and everybody decides to compromise,” Bloomberg said.
“It doesn’t even have to be the leading candidate; it could be the one with a smaller number of delegates,” he added, before noting that a contested convention would include the ability to “swap votes and make deals.”
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