Random host? Jon Stewart was huge, he defined political comedy for over 15 years. His audience though likely didn't overlap much with JRE due to different political leanings (well, that and age).
EDIT: for those who don't remember policital comedy/commentary shows were not a thing before The Daily Show. Sort of like how people forget conversational format and ajax weren't really a thing before gmail
Trump’s presidency showed that it entirely wasn’t.