Donald Trump‘s 2026 State of the Union address brought in an estimated 32.6 million viewers on Tuesday, according to Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings.
That was down from last year’s address to Congress (which took place on March 4, 2005, about a month and a half after Trump started his second term as president), which averaged 36.6 million viewers. It’s also down from former President Joe Biden’s second-year State of the Union, which averaged 38.2 million viewers in 2022.
Nielsen tallied 15 networks that aired the address from 9:12 p.m. to 10:59 p.m. ET, including ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Estrella TV, Telemundo, Univision, PBS, CNN, CNN en Español, Fox Business Network, Fox News Channel, MS Now, Newsmax and Newsnation.
In demos, the 2026 State of the Union attracted a 2.8 rating (2 million viewers) in adults 18-34 and a 7.1 rating with persons 35-54 (6 million viewers). The majority of viewers were over 55, a demo that averaged a 23.1 rating (23.6 million).
During his first term in office, Trump’s 2017 address reached 47.7 million viewers, followed by 45.6 million in 2018, 46.8 in 2019 and 37.2 million in 2020.
As Variety wrote earlier this week, Trump touted his economic achievements, attacked immigrants and Democrats, and criticized the Supreme Court in the divisive State of the Union address. “These people are crazy,” he said. “Democrats are destroying our country, but we’ve stopped it in the nick of time,” he said, adding later, ““A short while ago, we were a dead country,” Trump said. “Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. The hottest.”