If you’re a fan of The View, you’ve seen your share of heated debates on the ABC talk show. And you’ve probably gotten a feel for the sort of lines that draw applause from the studio audience. In short, if Meghan McCain is saying it, the audience normally isn’t applauding.
From that, you might assume the studio audience has a high percentage of liberals. While you’ll see Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin go after liberal and conservative guests alike, it’s clear the New York City audience watching The View in the studio does not love the GOP agenda.
But does The View’s audience watching at home also skew heavily toward liberals? While the show’s ratings numbers show the audience is mostly over 55, daily Nielsen data doesn’t break down numbers by political preferences. However, a 2019 article shed light on who’s watching The View.
Research shows over 60% of ‘The View’ audience is Democrats
In May 2019, the New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy article on The View. From its provocative title (“How ‘The View’ Became the Most Important Political TV Show in America”) to the behind-the-scenes chats with the co-hosts, there was plenty for fans to see here.
For us, the data on the audience’s political preferences stood out. The magazine quoted MRI-Simmons, a firm specializing in consumer behavior insights. MRI-Simmons said nearly 65% of The View audience was registered to vote as Democrats.
Now that doesn’t mean progressive, as the mostly 55+ viewers tend to be more conservative than younger Democrats (or, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic Socialists). However, you can bet that more than half of viewers of any given show favor Democrats in elections.
As for the Republican audience, that number was much, much smaller. According to MRI-Simmons, 12.6% of The View audience has registered to vote as Republicans. So the applause lines at home are probably about the same as they are in the studio.
Over 20% of ‘The View’ audience is independent or ‘other’
If you add up those two numbers from MRI-Simmons, you don’t quite get to 80%. So you could assume the remaining 20% is registered to vote as independent (with possibly a few libertarians thrown in there).
All things considered, the mix of the show’s co-hosts mostly reflects the audience watching at home. Joy Behar may be the most unabashed liberal and staunch Democrat at the table. Whoopi, who often thinks outside the box (and thus outside party lines), clearly has liberal views as well.
Hostin, who opposes abortion and has been very outspoken in opposition to many Bernie Sanders policies, represents the more conservative branch of the Democratic party. And of course McCain represents the far right of the Republican party.
Prior to the departure of Abby Huntsman (a Republican to the left of McCain on several issues), you could have argued the co-hosts were more conservative than the show’s audience at home. But at this point the cast looks a lot like The View’s audience at home, politically speaking.
Also see: Why Does Meghan McCain Always Seem Unhappy on ‘The View’?
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