Kennedy’s “Real Debate” Challenges Trump v Biden in Viewership

While CNN’s Trump v. Biden debate garnered 50 million views across a dozen platforms, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “The Real Debate” received over 10 million views on just one single platform, X (formerly Twitter).

CNN vs. X

According to Variety, a Neilson report released June 28 said that CNN’s debate had 51.3 million viewers, across 17 networks. These numbers were a coup for the host network, CNN. The New York Times reported that before the debate, the news network “was on track to record its lowest rated month in prime time since 1991.” The New York Post revealed in May that “The cable channel, which touts itself as ‘the most trusted name in news,’ drew just 83,000 viewers aged 25 to 54 during the week of May 13-19 from 8 to 11 p.m. — its lowest-rated week since 1991, according to Nielsen. Honest Media chronicled the loss of the public’s trust that these numbers reflect in a four-part series published earlier this year. 

While the debate was a boost for CNN’s Neilson ratings, overall viewership was spread across 17 networks, thus diluting its brand impact. It was also down 30% from the last time Biden and Trump debated in 2020, when 73 million Americans watched. Despite more options for tuning in, millions of Americans tuned out – revealing significant fatigue or disdain for the uniparty candidates, sentiments reflected in numerous polls since the start of the race.

Few pundits, however, anticipated the shadow debate engineered by the Kennedy campaign. Kennedy was spurred to this creative response by the cynical machinations of the network, which technically locked him out of the debate. Kennedy has polled above 15% in multiple polls. As of June 20, he was officially on the ballot in nine states and had submitted double or triple the required signatures in fourteen more, representing 310 total electoral votes, as reported by The Kennedy Beacon.

In a matter of days following CNN’s exclusion announcement, the Kennedy campaign orchestrated an online event, billed as “The Real Debate,” that has been viewed by more than ten million people, and counting. Time reported that “Kennedy used his shadow debate to offer live commentary on his rivals, saying they represented the ‘vitriol, the division, the polarization that makes [Americans] disgusted with politics.’”

A Strong Signal for Kennedy

In a recent post on X, LunarCrush, a social network intel gathering consultancy, noted:

Sentiment on the US Election has taken a very unusual turn today. Social sentiment on posts about @RobertKennedyJr has shifted tremendously higher, being the only candidate with overwhelmingly positive sentiment.

Lunar Crush, which monitors several online digital media outlets to track social sentiment and influencer impact, responded to leading X Spaces host Mario Nawaf. They wrote:

We won't speak to who wins or loses @MarioNawfal but the data we measured around the time of the debate showed sentiment on @RobertKennedyJr absolutely soared higher while sentiment on other candidates shot downward. This is a very strong signal for RFK.

This professional analysis of social network data suggests that support for Kennedy might be deeper than suspected and perhaps even indicative of a surprise on election day. 

“The mainstream media and the polls wrote off Donald Trump [in 2016] and now they’re doing the same thing to @RobertKennedyJr.,” said Dr. Phil just before conducting a one-on-one interview with the candidate. 

The big winner in the wake of Bill Ackman’s calling out “The Big Lie” of mainstream media’s coverage of Biden’s deteriorating condition, could well be Kennedy, rather than Trump.

Chamath Palihapitiya during his All-In Podcast after the debate said, "The mask has come off. The whole shell game has been revealed. It's obvious that Biden was always a puppet for these interests who were hiding behind him and now it's all being exposed."

While CNN’s presidential debate did lift the network out of the cellar of Neilson ratings, its 2024 Trump-Biden rematch came up 20 million Americans short compared to the 2020 debate viewership – a 30% fall off.

The network, an accomplice to the “Big Lie” had six weeks to promote a widely advertised official event. Meanwhile, the Kennedy campaign had just a few days for their “pirate” debate and were still able to reach over 10 million viewers, refusing to be silenced in the face of the establishment juggernaut opposing them, and proving that a live broadcast on X can compete with a collapsing mainstream media. The Big Lie exposed by CNN this June could lead to a “Big Surprise” this November.