Fox News Tops Election Night Ratings; CNN Wins Key Demo

Fox News leads early, CNN takes the late window

Fox News was the most-watched cable news network during the early part of midterm election night coverage on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026, according to a daily cable news ratings report based on Nielsen Big Data + Panel measurement. CNN finished first in the later window.

Fox News led among total viewers between 4 and 10 p.m. ET. CNN then took the top spot between 10 p.m. and 12 a.m. ET. CNN was also the top network in the Adults 25-54 demographic, which is the age group commonly used as a benchmark for advertisers in news programming.

Total viewers

Across the full day, Fox News averaged 1.918 million total viewers. MS NOW drew 1.663 million and CNN had 1.55 million.

In prime time, the order stayed the same but the margins narrowed. Fox News averaged 4.315 million viewers, CNN 4.147 million and MS NOW 3.749 million.

Adults 25-54

The demographic numbers were much more favorable to CNN. Over the full day, CNN averaged 480,000 viewers in the group. Fox News had 275,000 and MS NOW 274,000.

The gap was wider in prime time. CNN drew 1.512 million Adults 25-54, compared with 771,000 for Fox News and 665,000 for MS NOW.

What the numbers show

The results show a split by audience measure on a major news night. Fox News held the advantage in total viewers for the day, for prime time and for the early evening stretch of election coverage. CNN won the late-night hours and led by a wide margin among the 25-54 audience throughout the day and in prime time.

The figures come from Nielsen Media Research, with all times given in Eastern Time. The report also includes minute-by-minute charts of viewership for each network, but the underlying program-level numbers were not part of the text summary.

Source: adweek.com

Image: Gerald Shields / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)