Republican Convention viewership shows mixed results across cable and digital platforms

The opening night of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, saw varied viewership across major cable networks. Fox News, the only major network to broadcast Donald Trump’s two-hour address in full, averaged approximately 2.5 million viewers during his speech between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET. While this outperformed CNN, which averaged 441,000 viewers, and MSNBC, which saw 1 million viewers, the figures were lower than Fox News’s September 2025 primetime averages.

On digital platforms, Jimmy Kimmel’s YouTube interview with Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico garnered over 4.3 million views, surpassing the viewership of the convention’s own livestream. During his address, Donald Trump urged voters to view the upcoming November midterm elections as a referendum on his leadership, telling supporters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.”