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You are here: Home / 2020 Campaign / CNN Town Halls Have Been Disastrous for Ratings

CNN Town Halls Have Been Disastrous for Ratings

May 15, 2019 at 11:02 am EDT By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Washington Post: “Since January, CNN has staged 20 town halls, featuring both well-known candidates like Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris (both twice) to long shots like businessman Andrew Yang and self-help book author Marianne Williamson… Only four candidates — Harris, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg — have drawn more viewers than CNN averages on a typical weeknight, around 1.16 million people.”

“The rest, at least in television terms, have ranged anywhere from subpar to flaming disasters. Back-to-back town halls featuring Yang and Williamson drew about 310,000 viewers in April, far below the network’s modest 907,000 average for all the candidates. None of its town halls has surpassed regular programming on cable rivals Fox and MSNBC.”

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Filed Under: 2020 Campaign, Media Buzz

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Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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