2016 United States presidential election

For related races, see 2016 United States elections.

2016 United States presidential election
← 2012 November 8, 2016 2020 →
538 members of the Electoral College
270 electoral votes needed to win
Opinion polls
Turnout60.1%[1] Increase 1.5 pp
 
Nominee Donald Trump Hillary Clinton
Party Republican Democratic
Home state New York New York
Running mate Mike Pence Tim Kaine
Electoral vote 304[a] 227[a]
States carried 30 + ME-02 20 + DC
Popular vote 62,984,828[2] 65,853,514[2]
Percentage 46.1% 48.2%
2016 United States presidential election in California2016 United States presidential election in Oregon2016 United States presidential election in Washington (state)2016 United States presidential election in Idaho2016 United States presidential election in Nevada2016 United States presidential election in Utah2016 United States presidential election in Arizona2016 United States presidential election in Montana2016 United States presidential election in Wyoming2016 United States presidential election in Colorado2016 United States presidential election in New Mexico2016 United States presidential election in North Dakota2016 United States presidential election in South Dakota2016 United States presidential election in Nebraska2016 United States presidential election in Kansas2016 United States presidential election in Oklahoma2016 United States presidential election in Texas2016 United States presidential election in Minnesota2016 United States presidential election in Iowa2016 United States presidential election in Missouri2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas2016 United States presidential election in Louisiana2016 United States presidential election in Wisconsin2016 United States presidential election in Illinois2016 United States presidential election in Michigan2016 United States presidential election in Indiana2016 United States presidential election in Ohio2016 United States presidential election in Kentucky2016 United States presidential election in Tennessee2016 United States presidential election in Mississippi2016 United States presidential election in Alabama2016 United States presidential election in Georgia2016 United States presidential election in Florida2016 United States presidential election in South Carolina2016 United States presidential election in North Carolina2016 United States presidential election in Virginia2016 United States presidential election in West Virginia2016 United States presidential election in the District of Columbia2016 United States presidential election in Maryland2016 United States presidential election in Delaware2016 United States presidential election in Pennsylvania2016 United States presidential election in New Jersey2016 United States presidential election in New York2016 United States presidential election in Connecticut2016 United States presidential election in Rhode Island2016 United States presidential election in Vermont2016 United States presidential election in New Hampshire2016 United States presidential election in Maine2016 United States presidential election in Massachusetts2016 United States presidential election in Hawaii2016 United States presidential election in Alaska2016 United States presidential election in the District of Columbia2016 United States presidential election in Maryland2016 United States presidential election in Delaware2016 United States presidential election in New Jersey2016 United States presidential election in Connecticut2016 United States presidential election in Rhode Island2016 United States presidential election in Massachusetts2016 United States presidential election in Vermont2016 United States presidential election in New Hampshire
Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Trump/Pence and blue denotes those won by Clinton/Kaine. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia. On election night, Trump won 306 electors and Clinton 232. However, because of seven faithless electors (five Democratic and two Republican), Trump received 304 votes and Clinton 227.
President before election

Barack Obama
Democratic

Elected President

Donald Trump
Republican

2016 U.S. presidential election
Republican Party
Democratic Party
Third parties
Related races
← 2012 2016 2020 →

The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of former secretary of state and First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton and Virginia junior senator Tim Kaine, in what was considered one of the biggest political upsets in American history.[3] It was the fifth and most recent presidential election in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote.[2][4] It was also the sixth and most recent presidential election in U.S. history in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1860, 1904, 1920, 1940, and 1944.

Incumbent Democratic president Barack Obama was ineligible to pursue a third term due to the term limits established by the Twenty-second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Clinton secured the nomination over U.S. senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and became the first female presidential nominee of a major American political party. Trump emerged as his party's front-runner amidst a wide field of candidates in the Republican primary, defeating, among other candidates, U.S. senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and governors John Kasich and Jeb Bush. Trump's right-wing populist, nationalist campaign, which promised to "Make America Great Again" and opposed political correctness, illegal immigration, and many United States free-trade agreements,[5] garnered extensive free media coverage due to Trump's inflammatory comments.[6][7] Clinton emphasized her extensive political experience, denounced Trump and many of his supporters as a "basket of deplorables", bigots, and extremists, and advocated the expansion of president Barack Obama's policies, racial, LGBT, and women's rights, and inclusive capitalism.[8]

The tone of the general election campaign was widely characterized as divisive, negative, and troubling.[9][10][11] Trump faced controversy over his views on race and immigration, incidents of violence against protesters at his rallies,[12][13][14] and numerous sexual misconduct allegations including the Access Hollywood tape. Clinton's popularity and public image were tarnished by concerns about her ethics and trustworthiness,[15] and a controversy and subsequent FBI investigation regarding her improper use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state, which received more media coverage than any other topic during the campaign.[16][17] Clinton led in almost every nationwide and swing-state poll, with some predictive models giving Clinton over a 90 percent chance of winning.[18][19]

On Election Day, Trump over-performed his polls, winning several key swing states, while losing the popular vote by 2.87 million votes.[20] Trump received the majority in the Electoral College and won upset victories in the Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The pivotal victory in this region, which Trump won by fewer than 80,000 votes in the three states with the combined 46 electoral votes, was considered the catalyst that won him the Electoral College vote. Trump's surprise victories were perceived to have been assisted by Clinton's lack of campaigning in the region, the rightward shift of the white working class,[21] and the influence of Sanders–Trump voters who refused to back her after Bernie Sanders dropped out.[22][23][24] Ultimately, Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton 227, as two faithless electors defected from Trump and five from Clinton. Trump flipped six states that had voted Democratic in 2012: Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as Maine's 2nd congressional district. Trump was the first president with neither prior public service nor military experience.

With ballot access to the entire national electorate, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson received nearly 4.5 million votes (3.27%), the highest nationwide vote share for a third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1996,[25] while Green Party nominee Jill Stein received almost 1.45 million votes (1.06%). Independent candidate Evan McMullin received 21.4% of the vote in his home state of Utah, the highest share of the vote for a non-major party candidate in any state since 1992.[26]

On January 6, 2017, the United States Intelligence Community concluded that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 elections,[27][28] and that it did so in order to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency".[29] A Special Counsel investigation of alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign began in May 2017,[30][31] and ended in March 2019. The investigation concluded that Russian interference in favor of Trump's candidacy occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion" but it "did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government".[32][33]

  1. ^ ("National General Election VEP Turnout Rates, 1789-Present". United States Election Project. CQ Press. Archived from the original on July 25, 2014. Retrieved April 3, 2023.)("Official 2016 Presidential General Election Results" (PDF). Federal Election Commission. December 2017. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 2, 2019. Retrieved February 12, 2018.) ("Voting and Registration in the Election of November 2016". United States Census Bureau. May 2017. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2017.)
  2. ^ a b c "FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2016 -- Election Results for the U.S. President, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives" (PDF). Federal Elections Commission. December 2017. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  3. ^ "Trump pulls off biggest upset in U.S. history". Politico. November 9, 2016. Archived from the original on July 5, 2022. Retrieved April 15, 2023.
  4. ^ Larry Sabato; Kyle Kondik; Geoffrey Skelley (2017). Trumped: The 2016 Election That Broke All the Rules. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 7 (The popular vote results mentioned here are slightly different from the official results published in December 2017.). ISBN 9781442279407.
  5. ^ Becker, Bernie (February 13, 2016). "Trump's six populist positions" Archived October 31, 2019, at the Wayback Machine. Politico. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
  6. ^ Nicholas Confessore & Karen Yourish, "Measuring Donald Trump's Mammoth Advantage in Free Media" Archived November 21, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times (March 16, 2016).
  7. ^ Walsh, Kenneth. "How Donald Trump's Media Dominance Is Changing the 2016 Campaign". U.S. News & World Report. Archived from the original on February 25, 2016. Retrieved February 17, 2016.
  8. ^ Chozick, Amy (March 4, 2016). "Clinton Offers Economic Plan Focused on Jobs" Archived March 15, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. The New York Times. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
  9. ^ Wallace, Gregory (November 8, 2016). "Negative ads dominate in campaign's final days" Archived March 9, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. CNN. Retrieved March 8, 2018.
  10. ^ Cassidy, John (November 5, 2016). "Closing Arguments: The Logic of Negative Campaigning" Archived March 9, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. The New Yorker. Retrieved March 8, 2018. "This Presidential campaign has been the most bitter in recent American history."
  11. ^ Pew Research Center (November 21, 2016). "Voters' evaluations of the campaign: Campaign viewed as heavy on negative campaigning, light on issues" Archived March 9, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved March 8, 2018
  12. ^ Tiefenthaler, Ainara (March 14, 2016). "Trump's History of Encouraging Violence" Archived November 7, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. The New York Times. Retrieved November 8, 2016.
  13. ^ Nguyen, Tina (March 11, 2016). "Donald Trump's Rallies Are Becoming Increasingly Violent" Archived May 9, 2018, at the Wayback Machine. Vanity Fair. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  14. ^ Jacobs, Ben (March 11, 2016). "Trump campaign dogged by violent incidents at rallies" Archived March 11, 2016, at the Wayback Machine. The Guardian. Retrieved March 12, 2016.
  15. ^ McCarthy, Justin (July 1, 2016). "Americans' Reactions to Trump, Clinton Explain Poor Images" Archived August 21, 2019, at the Wayback Machine. Gallup News. Retrieved August 20, 2019.
  16. ^ "News Coverage of the 2016 National Conventions: Negative News, Lacking Context". Shorenstein Center. September 21, 2016. Archived from the original on December 8, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
  17. ^ "Partisanship, Propaganda, and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election | Berkman Klein Center". cyber.harvard.edu. Archived from the original on March 16, 2021. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
  18. ^ Wang, Sam (November 8, 2016). "Final Projections 2016". Princeton Election Consortium. Archived from the original on January 9, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  19. ^ "2016 Election Forecast". HuffPost. November 8, 2016. Archived from the original on January 23, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
  20. ^ "Did Clinton win more votes than any white man in history?". BBC News. December 12, 2016. Archived from the original on September 8, 2018. Retrieved September 9, 2018.
  21. ^ Carnes, Nicholas; Lupu, Noam. "The White Working Class and the 2016 Election" (PDF). noamlupu.com. Noam Lupu. Retrieved November 1, 2024. White working-class Americans have been supporting Republican presidential candidates at higher rates in recent elections, but that process long predates 2016, and narratives that center on Trump's alleged appeal obscure this important long-term trend.
  22. ^ McQuarrie, Michael (November 2017). "The revolt of the Rust Belt: place and politics in the age of anger". The British Journal of Sociology. 68 (S1): S120–S152. doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12328. ISSN 0007-1315. PMID 29114874. S2CID 26010609.
  23. ^ "Could Sanders voters help Trump win the White House again?". NBC News. March 8, 2020. Archived from the original on October 3, 2020. Retrieved November 29, 2022.
  24. ^ Kurtzleben, Danielle (August 24, 2017). "Here's How Many Bernie Sanders Supporters Ultimately Voted For Trump". NPR. Archived from the original on October 3, 2020. Retrieved November 29, 2022.
  25. ^ "2016 Presidential Ballot Access Map". July 14, 2016. Archived from the original on May 8, 2021. Retrieved May 28, 2021.
  26. ^ "Presidential Election of 2016". 270toWin.com. Archived from the original on May 14, 2021. Retrieved May 28, 2021.
  27. ^ Miller, Greg; Entous, Adam (January 6, 2017). "Declassified report says Putin 'ordered' effort to undermine faith in U.S. election and help Trump". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on January 7, 2017. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  28. ^ Eichenwald, Kurt (January 10, 2017). "Trump, Putin and the hidden history of how Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election". Newsweek. Archived from the original on January 30, 2021. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  29. ^ "Intelligence Report on Russian Hacking". The New York Times. January 6, 2017. p. 11. Archived from the original on January 8, 2017. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
  30. ^ Rosenstein, Rod (May 17, 2017). "Rod Rosenstein's Letter Appointing Mueller Special Counsel". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 18, 2017. Retrieved November 3, 2017.
  31. ^ "Grand Jury Indicts Thirteen Russian Individuals and Three Russian Companies for Scheme to Interfere in the United States Political System". United States Department of Justice. February 16, 2018. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved November 14, 2018.
  32. ^ Mueller Report Archived April 19, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, vol. I, p. 1: "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. [...] Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
  33. ^ Geller, Eric (April 18, 2019). "Collusion aside, Mueller found abundant evidence of Russian election plot". Politico. POLITICO LLC. Archived from the original on March 8, 2021. Retrieved November 12, 2020.


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