“@FoxNews daytime ratings have completely collapsed. Weekend daytime even WORSE. Very sad to watch this happen, but they forgot what made them successful, what got them there. They forgot the Golden Goose. The biggest difference between the 2016 Elections, and 2020, was @FoxNews!” Trump wrote.
On Election Day, Fox News had a total of 14.1 million viewers during prime time, far surpassing CNN’s Election Day coverage viewership of 9.4 million, with MSNBC coming third at 7.6 million viewers.
Trump has expressed disappointment with Fox News, saying during a recent interview on the network that it has changed.
The apparent rating decline could be due to how the network called the race on Election Night. Fox News was one of the first news outlets to call Arizona for Biden despite hundreds of thousands of outstanding ballots still being counted.
And on Nov. 9, Fox News host Neil Cavuto cut coverage of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s press conference regarding legal challenges and allegations surrounding voter fraud.
But before that, Fox News increasingly has faced backlash from both Republicans and Trump. During the first debate between Biden and Trump, the president offered critical words to Fox News’ Chris Wallace, who moderated the debate, saying he was debating against both Wallace and Biden. Trump also accused Fox of running “suppression polls” during the campaign that showed Trump losing to Biden by a significant margin.
“There are still a handful of races undecided. On election night, the Fox News decision desk correctly predicted soon after 9 Eastern that Democrats would retain control of the House. But they also estimated Democrats would add about five seats to their majority,” Baier said.
“That did not occur. Republicans have gained six seats with multiple races yet to be decided,” said Baier.
