2016 United States presidential election, Primary process
Both the Democratic and Republican parties, as well as third parties such as the Green and Libertarian parties, held a series of presidential primary elections and caucuses that took place between February and June 2016, staggered among the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. This nominating process was also an indirect election, where voters cast ballots for a slate of delegates to a political party's nominating convention, who in turn elected their party's presidential nominee.


2016 United States presidential election, Primary process
Speculation about the 2016 campaign began almost immediately following the 2012 campaign, with New York magazine declaring that the race had begun in an article published on November 8, two days after the 2012 election. On the same day, Politico released an article predicting that the 2016 general election would be between Clinton and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, while an article in The New York Times named New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey as potential candidates.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Primaries
With seventeen major candidates entering the race, starting with Ted Cruz on March 23, 2015, this was the largest presidential primary field for any political party in American history, before being overtaken by the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Primaries
Prior to the Iowa caucuses on February 1, 2016, Perry, Walker, Jindal, Graham, and Pataki withdrew due to low polling numbers. Despite leading many polls in Iowa, Trump came in second to Cruz, after which Huckabee, Paul, and Santorum withdrew due to poor performances at the ballot box. Following a sizable victory for Trump in the New Hampshire primary, Christie, Fiorina, and Gilmore abandoned the race. Bush followed suit after scoring fourth place to Trump, Rubio, and Cruz in South Carolina.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Primaries
On March 1, 2016, the first of four "Super Tuesday" primaries, Rubio won his first contest in Minnesota, Cruz won Alaska, Oklahoma, and his home state of Texas, and Trump won the other seven states that voted. Failing to gain traction, Carson suspended his campaign a few days later. On March 15, 2016, the second "Super Tuesday", Kasich won his only contest in his home state of Ohio, and Trump won five primaries including Florida. Rubio suspended his campaign after losing his home state.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Primaries
Between March 16 and May 3, 2016, only three candidates remained in the race: Trump, Cruz, and Kasich. Cruz won the most delegates in four Western contests and in Wisconsin, keeping a credible path to denying Trump the nomination on the first ballot with 1,237 delegates. Trump then augmented his lead by scoring landslide victories in New York and five Northeastern states in April, followed by a decisive victory in Indiana on May 3, 2016, securing all 57 of the state's delegates. Without any further chances of forcing a contested convention, both Cruz and Kasich suspended their campaigns. Trump remained the only active candidate and was declared the presumptive Republican nominee by Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on the evening of May 3, 2016.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Primaries
A 2018 study found that media coverage of Trump led to increased public support for him during the primaries. The study showed that Trump received nearly $2 billion in free media, more than double any other candidate. Political scientist John Sides argued that Trump's polling surge was "almost certainly" due to frequent media coverage of his campaign. Sides concluded "Trump is surging in the polls because the news media has consistently focused on him since he announced his candidacy on June 16." Prior to clinching the Republican nomination, Trump received little support from establishment Republicans.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Candidates
Major candidates were determined by the various media based on common consensus. The following were invited to sanctioned televised debates based on their poll ratings.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Candidates
Trump received 14,010,177 total votes in the primary. Trump, Cruz, Rubio and Kasich each won at least one primary, with Trump receiving the highest number of votes and Ted Cruz receiving the second highest.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Vice presidential selection
Trump turned his attention towards selecting a running mate after he became the presumptive nominee on May 4, 2016. In mid-June, Eli Stokols and Burgess Everett of Politico reported that the Trump campaign was considering New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich from Georgia, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, and Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin. A June 30 report from The Washington Post also included Senators Bob Corker from Tennessee, Richard Burr from North Carolina, Tom Cotton from Arkansas, Joni Ernst from Iowa, and Indiana governor Mike Pence as individuals still being considered for the ticket. Trump also said he was considering two military generals for the position, including retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Vice presidential selection
In July 2016, it was reported that Trump had narrowed his list of possible running mates down to three: Christie, Gingrich, and Pence.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Republican Party, Vice presidential selection
On July 14, 2016, several major media outlets reported that Trump had selected Pence as his running mate. Trump confirmed these reports in a message Twitter on July 15, 2016, and formally made the announcement the following day in New York. On July 19, the second night of the 2016 Republican National Convention, Pence won the Republican vice presidential nomination by acclamation.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who also served in the U.S. Senate and was the First Lady of the United States, became the first Democrat in the field to formally launch a major candidacy for the presidency with an announcement on April 12, 2015, via a video message. While nationwide opinion polls in 2015 indicated that Clinton was the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, she faced strong challenges from Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who became the second major candidate when he formally announced on April 30, 2015, that he was running for the Democratic nomination.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
September 2015 polling numbers indicated a narrowing gap between Clinton and Sanders. On May 30, 2015, former Governor of Maryland Martin O'Malley was the third major candidate to enter the Democratic primary race, followed by former independent governor and Republican senator of Rhode Island Lincoln Chafee on June 3, 2015, former Virginia Senator Jim Webb on July 2, 2015, and former Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig on September 6, 2015.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
On October 20, 2015, Webb announced his withdrawal from the primaries, and explored a potential Independent run. The next day Vice-President Joe Biden decided not to run, ending months of speculation, stating, "While I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent." On October 23, Chafee withdrew, stating that he hoped for "an end to the endless wars and the beginning of a new era for the United States and humanity." On November 2, after failing to qualify for the second DNC-sanctioned debate after adoption of a rule change negated polls which before might have necessitated his inclusion in the debate, Lessig withdrew as well, narrowing the field to Clinton, O'Malley, and Sanders.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
On February 1, 2016, in an extremely close contest, Clinton won the Iowa caucuses by a margin of 0.2 points over Sanders. After winning no delegates in Iowa, O'Malley withdrew from the presidential race that day. On February 9, Sanders bounced back to win the New Hampshire primary with 60% of the vote. In the remaining two February contests, Clinton won the Nevada caucuses with 53% of the vote and scored a decisive victory in the South Carolina primary with 73% of the vote. On March 1, 11 states participated in the first of four "Super Tuesday" primaries.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
Clinton won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia and 504 pledged delegates, while Sanders won Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and his home state of Vermont and 340 delegates. The following weekend, Sanders won victories in Kansas, Nebraska, and Maine with 15- to 30-point margins, while Clinton won the Louisiana primary with 71% of the vote. On March 8, despite never having a lead in the Michigan primary, Sanders won by a small margin of 1.5 points and outperforming polls by over 19 points, while Clinton won 83% of the vote in Mississippi.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
On March 15, the second "Super Tuesday", Clinton won in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. Between March 22 and April 9, Sanders won six caucuses in Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, and Wyoming, as well as the Wisconsin primary, while Clinton won the Arizona primary. On April 19, Clinton won the New York primary with 58% of the vote. On April 26, in the third "Super Tuesday" dubbed the "Acela primary", she won contests in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, while Sanders won in Rhode Island. Over the course of May, Sanders accomplished another surprise win in the Indiana primary and also won in West Virginia and Oregon, while Clinton won the Guam caucus and Kentucky primary (and also non-binding primaries in Nebraska and Washington).


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
On June 4 and 5, Clinton won two victories in the Virgin Islands caucus and Puerto Rico primary. On June 6, 2016, the Associated Press and NBC News reported that Clinton had become the presumptive nominee after reaching the required number of delegates, including pledged delegates and superdelegates, to secure the nomination, becoming the first woman to ever clinch the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party. On June 7, Clinton secured a majority of pledged delegates after winning primaries in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota, while Sanders won only Montana and North Dakota.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
Clinton also won the final primary in the District of Columbia on June 14. At the conclusion of the primary process, Clinton had won 2,204 pledged delegates (54% of the total) awarded by the primary elections and caucuses, while Sanders had won 1,847 (46%). Out of the 714 unpledged delegates or "superdelegates" who were set to vote in the convention in July, Clinton received endorsements from 560 (78%), while Sanders received 47 (7%).


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Primaries
Although Sanders had not formally dropped out of the race, he announced on June 16, 2016, that his main goal in the coming months would be to work with Clinton to defeat Trump in the general election. On July 8, appointees from the Clinton campaign, the Sanders campaign, and the Democratic National Committee negotiated a draft of the party's platform. On July 12, Sanders formally endorsed Clinton at a rally in New Hampshire in which he appeared with her. Sanders then went on to headline 39 campaign rallies on behalf of Clinton in 13 key states.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Candidates
The following candidates were frequently interviewed by major broadcast networks and cable news channels or were listed in publicly published national polls. Lessig was invited to one forum, but withdrew when rules were changed which prevented him from participating in officially sanctioned debates.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Vice presidential selection
In April 2016, the Clinton campaign began to compile a list of 15 to 20 individuals to vet for the position of running mate, even though Sanders continued to challenge Clinton in the Democratic primaries.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Vice presidential selection
In mid-June, The Wall Street Journal reported that Clinton's shortlist included Representative Xavier Becerra from California, Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey, Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro from Texas, Mayor of Los Angeles Eric Garcetti from California, Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, Labor Secretary Tom Perez from Maryland, Representative Tim Ryan from Ohio, and Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. Subsequent reports stated that Clinton was also considering Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, retired Admiral James Stavridis, and Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado. In discussing her potential vice presidential choice, Clinton said the most important attribute she looked for was the ability and experience to immediately step into the role of president.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Democratic Party, Vice presidential selection
On July 22, Clinton announced that she had chosen Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia as her running mate. The delegates at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, which took place July 25–28, formally nominated the Democratic ticket.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Minor parties and independents
Third party and independent candidates who have obtained more than 100,000 votes nationally or on Ballot in at least 15 states are listed separately.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Minor parties and independents, Independent
In some states, Evan McMullin's running mate was listed as Nathan Johnson on the ballot rather than Mindy Finn, although Nathan Johnson was intended to only be a placeholder until an actual running mate was chosen.


2016 United States presidential election, Nominations, Minor parties and independents, Other nominations
These candidates received at least 0.01% of the vote (13,667 votes).


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Beliefs and policies of candidates
Hillary Clinton focused her candidacy on several themes, including raising middle class incomes, expanding women's rights, instituting campaign finance reform, and improving the Affordable Care Act.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Beliefs and policies of candidates
In March 2016, she laid out a detailed economic plan basing her economic philosophy on inclusive capitalism, which proposed a "clawback" that rescinds tax cuts and other benefits for companies that move jobs overseas; with provision of incentives for companies that share profits with employees, communities and the environment, rather than focusing on short-term profits to increase stock value and rewarding shareholders; as well as increasing collective bargaining rights; and placing an "exit tax" on companies that move their headquarters out of the U.S. in order to pay a lower tax rate overseas.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Beliefs and policies of candidates
Clinton promoted equal pay for equal work to address current alleged shortfalls in how much women are paid to do the same jobs men do, promoted explicitly focus on family issues and support of universal preschool, expressed support for the right to same-sex marriage, and proposed allowing undocumented immigrants to have a path to citizenship stating that it "[i]s at its heart a family issue."


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Beliefs and policies of candidates
Donald Trump's campaign drew heavily on his personal image, enhanced by his previous media exposure. The primary slogan of the Trump campaign, extensively used on campaign merchandise, was Make America Great Again. The red baseball cap with the slogan emblazoned on the front became a symbol of the campaign and has been frequently donned by Trump and his supporters. Trump's right-wing populist positions—reported by The New Yorker to be nativist, protectionist, and semi-isolationist—differ in many ways from traditional U.S. conservatism.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Beliefs and policies of candidates
He opposed many free trade deals and military interventionist policies that conservatives generally support, and opposed cuts in Medicare and Social Security benefits. Moreover, he has insisted that Washington is "broken" and can be fixed only by an outsider. Support for Trump was high among working and middle-class white male voters with annual incomes of less than $50,000 and no college degree. This group, particularly those without a high-school diploma, suffered a decline in their income in recent years. According to The Washington Post, support for Trump is higher in areas with a higher mortality rate for middle-aged white people. A sample of interviews with more than 11,000 Republican-leaning respondents from August to December 2015 found that Trump at that time found his strongest support among Republicans in West Virginia, followed by New York, and then followed by six Southern states.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Media coverage
Clinton had an uneasy—and, at times, adversarial—relationship with the press throughout her life in public service. Weeks before her official entry as a presidential candidate, Clinton attended a political press corps event, pledging to start fresh on what she described as a "complicated" relationship with political reporters. Clinton was initially criticized by the press for avoiding taking their questions, after which she provided more interviews.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Media coverage
In contrast, Trump benefited from free media more than any other candidate. From the beginning of his campaign through February 2016, Trump received almost $2 billion in free media attention, twice the amount that Clinton received. According to data from the Tyndall Report, which tracks nightly news content, through February 2016, Trump alone accounted for more than a quarter of all 2016 election coverage on the evening newscasts of NBC, CBS and ABC, more than all the Democratic campaigns combined. Observers noted Trump's ability to garner constant mainstream media coverage "almost at will."


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Media coverage
However, Trump frequently criticized the media for writing what he alleged to be false stories about him and he has called upon his supporters to be "the silent majority." Trump also said the media "put false meaning into the words I say", and says he does not mind being criticized by the media as long as they are honest about it.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
Both Clinton and Trump were seen unfavorably by the general public, and their controversial reputations set the tone of the campaign.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
Clinton's practice during her time as Secretary of State of using a private email address and server, in lieu of State Department servers, gained widespread public attention back in March 2015. Concerns were raised about security and preservation of emails, and the possibility that laws may have been violated. After allegations were raised that some of the emails in question fell into this so-called "born classified" category, an FBI probe was initiated regarding how classified information was handled on the Clinton server. The FBI probe was concluded on July 5, 2016, with a recommendation of no charges, a recommendation that was followed by the Justice Department.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
Also, on September 9, 2016, Clinton said: "You know, just to be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic—you name it." Donald Trump criticized her remark as insulting his supporters. The following day Clinton expressed regret for saying "half", while insisting that Trump had deplorably amplified "hateful views and voices." Previously on August 25, 2016, Clinton gave a speech criticizing Trump's campaign for using "racist lies" and allowing the alt-right to gain prominence.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
On September 11, 2016, Clinton left a 9/11 memorial event early due to illness. Video footage of Clinton's departure showed Clinton becoming unsteady on her feet and being helped into a van. Later that evening, Clinton reassured reporters that she was "feeling great." After initially stating that Clinton had become overheated at the event, her campaign later added that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia two days earlier. The media criticized the Clinton campaign for a lack of transparency regarding Clinton's illness. Clinton cancelled a planned trip to California due to her illness. The episode drew renewed public attention to questions about Clinton's health.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
On the other side, on October 7, 2016, video and accompanying audio were released by The Washington Post in which Trump referred obscenely to women in a 2005 conversation with Billy Bush while they were preparing to film an episode of Access Hollywood. In the recording, Trump described his attempts to initiate a sexual relationship with a married woman and added that women would allow male celebrities to grope their genitalia (Trump used the phrase "grab 'em by the pussy"). The audio was met with a reaction of disbelief and disgust from the media.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
Following the revelation, Trump's campaign issued an apology, stating that the video was of a private conversation from "many years ago." The incident was condemned by numerous prominent Republicans like Reince Priebus, Mitt Romney, John Kasich, Jeb Bush and the Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Many believed the video had doomed Trump's chances for election. By October 8, several dozen Republicans had called for Trump to withdraw from the campaign and let Pence head the ticket. Trump insisted he would never drop out, but apologized for his remarks.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
Donald Trump also delivered strong and controversial statements towards Muslims and Islam on the campaign trail, saying, "I think Islam hates us." He was criticized and also supported for his statement at a rally declaring, "Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on." Additionally, Trump announced that he would "look into" surveilling mosques, and mentioned potentially going after the families of domestic terrorists in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting. His strong rhetoric towards Muslims resulted in leadership from both parties condemning his statements. However, many of his supporters shared their support for his proposed travel ban, despite the backlash.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
Throughout the campaign, Trump indicated in interviews, speeches, and Twitter posts that he would refuse to recognize the outcome of the election if he was defeated. Trump falsely stated that the election would be rigged against him. During the final presidential debate of 2016, Trump refused to tell Fox news anchor Chris Wallace whether or not he would accept the election results. The rejection of election results by a major nominee would have been unprecedented at the time as no major presidential candidate had ever refused to accept the outcome of an election until Trump did so himself in the following 2020 presidential election.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
The ongoing controversy of the election made third parties attract voters' attention. On March 3, 2016, Libertarian Gary Johnson addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC, touting himself as the third-party option for anti-Trump Republicans. In early May, some commentators opined that Johnson was moderate enough to pull votes away from both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump who were very disliked and polarizing. Both conservative and liberal media noted that Johnson could get votes from "Never Trump" Republicans and disaffected Bernie Sanders supporters.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
Johnson also began to get time on national television, being invited on ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Bloomberg, and many other networks. In September and October 2016, Johnson suffered a "string of damaging stumbles when he has fielded questions about foreign affairs." On September 8, Johnson, when he appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe, was asked by panelist Mike Barnicle, "What would you do, if you were elected, about Aleppo?" (referring to a war-torn city in Syria). Johnson responded, "And what is Aleppo?" His response prompted widespread attention, much of it negative. Later that day, Johnson said that he had "blanked" and that he did "understand the dynamics of the Syrian conflict—I talk about them every day."


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
On the other hand, Green Party candidate Jill Stein said the Democratic and Republican parties are "two corporate parties" that have converged into one. Concerned by the rise of the far right internationally and the tendency towards neoliberalism within the Democratic Party, she has said, "The answer to neofascism is stopping neoliberalism. Putting another Clinton in the White House will fan the flames of this right-wing extremism."


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
In response to Johnson's growing poll numbers, the Clinton campaign and Democratic allies increased their criticism of Johnson in September 2016, warning that "a vote for a third party is a vote for Donald Trump" and deploying Senator Bernie Sanders (Clinton's former primary rival, who supported her in the general election) to win over voters who might be considering voting for Johnson or for Stein.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Controversies
On October 28, eleven days before the election, FBI Director James Comey informed Congress that the FBI was analyzing additional Clinton emails obtained during its investigation of an unrelated case. On November 6, he notified Congress that the new emails did not change the FBI's earlier conclusion.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Campaign finance
Wall Street spent a record $2 billion trying to influence the 2016 United States presidential election.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Campaign finance
The following table is an overview of the money used in the campaign as it is reported to Federal Election Commission (FEC) and released in September 2016. Outside groups are independent expenditure-only committees—also called PACs and SuperPACs. The sources of the numbers are the FEC and Center for Responsive Politics. Some spending totals are not available, due to withdrawals before the FEC deadline. As of September 2016, ten candidates with ballot access have filed financial reports with the FEC.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Voting rights
The 2016 presidential election was the first in 50 years without all the protections of the original Voting Rights Act. Fourteen states had new voting restrictions in place, including swing states such as Virginia and Wisconsin.


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Newspaper endorsements
Clinton was endorsed by The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Houston Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the Chicago Sun-Times and the New York Daily News editorial boards. Several papers which endorsed Clinton, such as the Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Columbus Dispatch and The Arizona Republic, endorsed their first Democratic candidate for many decades. The Atlantic, which has been in circulation since 1857, gave Clinton its third-ever endorsement (after Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson).


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Newspaper endorsements
Trump, who frequently criticized the mainstream media, was not endorsed by the vast majority of newspapers. The Las Vegas Review-Journal, The Florida Times-Union, and the tabloid National Enquirer were his highest profile supporters. USA Today, which had not endorsed any candidate since it was founded in 1982, broke tradition by giving an anti-endorsement against Trump, declaring him "unfit for the presidency."


2016 United States presidential election, General election campaign, Newspaper endorsements
Gary Johnson received endorsements from several major daily newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune, and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Other traditionally Republican papers, including the New Hampshire Union Leader, which had endorsed the Republican nominee in every election for the last 100 years, and The Detroit News, which had not endorsed a non-Republican in its 143 years, endorsed Gary Johnson.


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
On December 9, 2016, the Central Intelligence Agency issued an assessment to lawmakers in the US Senate, stating that a Russian entity hacked the DNC and John Podesta's emails to assist Donald Trump. The Federal Bureau of Investigation agreed. President Barack Obama ordered a "full review" into such possible intervention. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper in early January 2017 testified before a Senate committee that Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign went beyond hacking, and included disinformation and the dissemination of fake news, often promoted on social media. Facebook revealed that during the 2016 United States presidential election, Russian company funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, Russian businessman with ties to Vladimir Putin, had purchased advertisements on the website for US$100,000, 25% of which were geographically targeted to the U.S.


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
President-elect Trump originally called the report fabricated. Julian Assange said the Russian government was not the source of the documents. Days later, Trump said he could be convinced of the Russian hacking "if there is a unified presentation of evidence from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies."


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
Several U.S. senators—including Republicans John McCain, Richard Burr, and Lindsey Graham—demanded a congressional investigation. The Senate Intelligence Committee announced the scope of their official inquiry on December 13, 2016, on a bipartisan basis; work began on January 24, 2017.


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
A formal Special Counsel investigation headed by former FBI director Robert Mueller was initiated in May 2017 to uncover the detailed interference operations by Russia, and to determine whether any people associated with the Trump campaign were complicit in the Russian efforts. When questioned by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press on March 5, 2017, Clapper declared that intelligence investigations on Russian interference performed by the FBI, CIA, NSA and his ODNI office had found no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller concluded his investigation on March 22, 2019, by submitting his report to Attorney General William Barr.


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
On March 24, 2019, Barr submitted a letter describing Mueller's conclusions, and on April 18, 2019, a redacted version of the Mueller Report was released to the public. It concluded that Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election did occur "in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law."


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
The first method detailed in the final report was the usage of the Internet Research Agency, waging "a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton." The Internet Research Agency also sought to "provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States."


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
The second method of Russian interference saw the Russian intelligence service, the GRU, hacking into email accounts owned by volunteers and employees of the Clinton presidential campaign, including that of campaign chairman John Podesta, and also hacking into "the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)." As a result, the GRU obtained hundreds of thousands of hacked documents, and the GRU proceeded by arranging releases of damaging hacked material via the WikiLeaks organization and also GRU's personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0."


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
To establish whether a crime was committed by members of the Trump campaign with regard to Russian interference, the special counsel's investigators "applied the framework of conspiracy law", and not the concept of "collusion", because collusion "is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law." They also investigated if members of the Trump campaign "coordinated" with Russia, using the definition of "coordination" as having "an agreement—tacit or express—between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference." Investigators further elaborated that merely having "two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests" was not enough to establish coordination.


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
The Mueller Report writes that the investigation "identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign", found that Russia "perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency" and that the 2016 Trump presidential campaign "expected it would benefit electorally" from Russian hacking efforts. Ultimately, "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Russian involvement
However, investigators had an incomplete picture of what had really occurred during the 2016 campaign, due to some associates of Trump campaign providing either false, incomplete or declined testimony, as well as having deleted, unsaved or encrypted communications. As such, the Mueller Report "cannot rule out the possibility" that information then unavailable to investigators would have presented different findings. In March 2020, the US Justice Department dropped its prosecution of two Russian firms linked to interference in the 2016 election.


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Other countries
Special Council Robert Mueller also investigated the Trump campaign's possible ties to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Qatar, Israel, and China. According to The Times of Israel, Trump's longtime confidant Roger Stone "was in contact with one or more apparently well-connected Israelis at the height of the 2016 US presidential campaign, one of whom warned Stone that Trump was 'going to be defeated unless we intervene' and promised 'we have critical intell[sic].'"


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Other countries
The Justice Department accused George Nader of providing $3.5 million in illicit campaign donations to Hillary Clinton before the elections and to Trump after he won the elections. According to The New York Times, this was an attempt by the government of United Arab Emirates to influence the election.


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Other countries
In December 2018, a Ukrainian court ruled that prosecutors in Ukraine had meddled in the 2016 election by releasing damaging information on Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Other countries
Voice of America reported in April 2020 that "U.S. intelligence agencies concluded the Chinese hackers meddled in both the 2016 and 2018 elections."


2016 United States presidential election, Involvement of other countries, Other countries
In July 2021, the US federal prosecutors highlighted and accused the United Arab Emirates of interfering in the 2016 Presidential campaign of Donald Trump. Under the new charges, the UAE was accused of seeking assistance from Trump’s former adviser Tom Barrack and using him as a lobbying agent to infiltrate the election campaign. An acting Assistant Attorney General, Mark Lesko had said that the Justice Department was determined to put everyone “on notice”, irrespective of “their wealth or perceived political power”. However, the Biden administration was allegedly seen continuing diplomatic relations with the UAE, despite the country's meddling in US politics and poor human rights record.


2016 United States presidential election, Debates, General election
The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a non-profit organization, hosted debates between qualifying presidential and vice-presidential candidates.


2016 United States presidential election, Debates, General election
According to the commission's website, to be eligible to opt to participate in the anticipated debates, "in addition to being Constitutionally eligible, candidates must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to have a mathematical chance of winning a majority vote in the Electoral College, and have a level of support of at least 15 percent of the national electorate as determined by five selected national public opinion polling organizations, using the average of those organizations' most recently publicly-reported results at the time of the determination."


2016 United States presidential election, Debates, General election
The three locations (Hofstra University, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Nevada, Las Vegas) chosen to host the presidential debates, and the one location (Longwood University) selected to host the vice presidential debate, were announced on September 23, 2015. The site of the first debate was originally designated as Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio; however, due to rising costs and security concerns, the debate was moved to Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York.


2016 United States presidential election, Debates, General election
On August 19, Kellyanne Conway, Trump's campaign manager confirmed that Trump would participate in a series of three debates. Trump had complained two of the scheduled debates, one on September 26 and the other October 9, would have to compete for viewers with National Football League games, referencing the similar complaints made regarding the dates with low expected ratings during the Democratic Party presidential debates.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Election night and the next day
The news media and election experts were surprised at Trump's winning the Electoral College. On the eve of the vote, spread betting firm Spreadex had Clinton at an Electoral College spread of 307–322 against Trump's 216–231. The final polls showed a lead by Clinton and in the end she did receive more votes. Trump himself expected, based on polling, to lose the election, and rented a small hotel ballroom to make a brief concession speech, later remarking: "I said if we're going to lose I don't want a big ballroom."


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Election night and the next day
Trump performed surprisingly well in all battleground states, especially Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and North Carolina. Even Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, states that had been predicted to vote Democratic, were won by Trump. Cindy Adams reported that "Trumptown knew they'd won by 5:30. Math, calculations, candidate dislike causing voter abstention begat the numbers."


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Election night and the next day
According to the authors of Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign, the White House had concluded by late Tuesday night that Trump would win the election. Obama's political director David Simas called Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook to persuade Clinton to concede the election, with no success. Obama then called Clinton directly, citing the importance of continuity of government, to ask her to publicly acknowledge that Trump had won. Believing that Clinton was still unwilling to concede, the president then called her campaign chair John Podesta, but the call to Clinton had likely already persuaded her.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Election night and the next day
After networks called Pennsylvania for Trump, putting him with 264 electoral votes while he had a five-point lead in Arizona, which gives eleven electoral votes that would put Trump above the majority of 270, Clinton realized she had no chance to win the election and called Trump early Wednesday morning to concede defeat. Clinton was unable to make a public concession that night, as she had no concession speech written.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Election night and the next day
On Wednesday morning at 2:30 a.m. Eastern Time (ET), it was reported that Trump had secured Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes, giving him a majority of the 538 electors in the Electoral College, enough to make him the president-elect of the United States, and at 2:50 a.m. Trump gave his victory speech.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Election night and the next day
Later that day, Clinton asked her supporters to accept the result and hoped that Trump would be "a successful president for all Americans." In his speech, Trump appealed for unity, saying "it is time for us to come together as one united people", and praised Clinton as someone who was owed "a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country."


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Statistical analysis
Six states plus a portion of Maine that Obama won in 2012 switched to Trump (Electoral College votes in parentheses): Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (6), and Maine's second congressional district (1). Initially, Trump won exactly 100 more Electoral College votes than Mitt Romney had in 2012, with two lost to faithless electors in the final tally. Thirty-nine states swung more Republican compared to the previous presidential election, while eleven states and the District of Columbia swung more Democratic.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Statistical analysis
Based on United States Census Bureau estimates of the voting age population (VAP), turnout of voters casting a vote for president was nearly 1% higher than in 2012. Examining overall turnout in the 2016 election, University of Florida Prof. Michael McDonald estimated that 138.8 million Americans cast a ballot. Considering a VAP of 250.6 million people and a voting eligible population (VEP) of 230.6 million people, this is a turnout rate of 55.4% VAP and 60.2% VEP. Based on this estimate, voter turnout was up compared to 2012 (54.1% VAP) but down compared to 2008 (57.4% VAP). A FEC report of the election recorded an official total of 136.7 million votes cast for President—more than any prior election. Hillary Clinton won 51.1% of the two party vote and Donald Trump won 48.9% of it.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Statistical analysis
Data scientist Hamdan Azhar noted the paradoxes of the 2016 outcome, saying that "chief among them [was] the discrepancy between the popular vote, which Hillary Clinton won by 2.8 million votes, and the electoral college, where Trump won 304-227." He said Trump outperformed Mitt Romney's 2012 results, while Clinton only just matched Barack Obama's 2012 totals. Hamdan also said Trump was "the highest vote earner of any Republican candidate ever," exceeding George W. Bush's 62.04 million votes in 2004, though neither reached Clinton's 65.9 million, nor Obama's 69.5 million votes in 2008. He concluded, with help from The Cook Political Report, that the election hinged not on Clinton's large 2.8 million overall vote margin over Trump, but rather on about 78,000 votes from only three counties in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Statistical analysis
The 2016 election marked the eighth consecutive presidential election where the victorious major party nominee did not win a popular vote majority by a double-digit margin over the losing major party nominee(s), with the sequence of presidential elections from 1988 through 2016 surpassing the sequences from 1836 through 1860 and from 1876 through 1900 to become the longest sequence of such presidential elections in U.S. history.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Results by state
The table below displays the official vote tallies by each state's Electoral College voting method. The source for the results of all states is the official Federal Election Commission report. The column labeled "Margin" shows Trump's margin of victory over Clinton (the margin is negative for every state that Clinton won).


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Results by state
A total of 29 third party and independent presidential candidates appeared on the ballot in at least one state. Former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson and physician Jill Stein repeated their 2012 roles as the nominees for the Libertarian Party and the Green Party, respectively. With ballot access to the entire national electorate, Johnson received nearly 4.5 million votes (3.27%), the highest nationwide vote share for a third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1996, while Stein received almost 1.45 million votes (1.06%), the most for a Green nominee since Ralph Nader in 2000.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Results by state
Independent candidate Evan McMullin, who appeared on the ballot in 11 states, received over 732,000 votes (0.53%). He won 21.4% of the vote in his home state of Utah, the highest share of the vote for a third-party candidate in any state since 1992. Despite dropping out of the election following his defeat in the Democratic primary, Senator Bernie Sanders received 5.7% of the vote in his home state of Vermont, the highest write-in draft campaign percentage for a presidential candidate in American history. Johnson and McMullin were the first third-party candidates since Nader to receive at least 5% of the vote in one or more states, with Johnson crossing the mark in 11 states and McMullin crossing it in two.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Results by state
Aside from Florida and North Carolina, the states which secured Trump's victory are situated in the Great Lakes/Rust Belt region. Wisconsin went Republican for the first time since 1984, while Pennsylvania and Michigan went Republican for the first time since 1988. Trump also won Maine's 2nd congressional district, which had also not been won by a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Stein petitioned for a recount in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The Clinton campaign pledged to participate in the Green Party recount efforts, while Trump backers challenged them in court. Meanwhile, American Delta Party/Reform Party presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuente petitioned for and was granted a partial recount in Nevada.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Results by state
According to a 2021 study in Science Advances, conversion of voters who voted for Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 contributed to Republican flips in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Results by state
Note that two states (Maine and Nebraska) allow for their electoral votes to be split between candidates by congressional districts. The winner within each congressional district gets one electoral vote for the district. The winner of the statewide vote gets two additional electoral votes. Results are from The New York Times.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
Most media outlets announced the beginning of the presidential race about twenty months prior to Election Day. Soon after the first contestants declared their candidacy, Larry Sabato listed Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada, and Ohio as the seven states most likely to be contested in the general election. After Donald Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination, many pundits felt that the major campaign locations might be different from what had originally been expected.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
Rust Belt states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and even Michigan were thought to be in play with Trump as the nominee, while states with large minority populations, such as Colorado and Virginia, were expected to shift towards Clinton. By the conventions period and the debates, however, it did not seem as though the Rust Belt states could deliver a victory to Trump, as many of them were considered to be part of the "blue wall" of Democratic-leaning states.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
Trump's courting of the Polish-American vote, a sizable number of whom were Reagan Democrats, has been cited as the cause for the loss of the Rust Belt by the Democratic nominee. According to Politico and FiveThirtyEight, his path to victory went through states such as Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, and possibly Colorado.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
Early polling indicated a closer-than-usual race in former Democratic strongholds such as Washington, Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine (for the two statewide electoral votes), and New Mexico.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
A consensus among political pundits developed throughout the primary election season regarding swing states. From the results of presidential elections from 2004 through to 2012, the Democratic and Republican parties would generally start with a safe electoral vote count of about 150 to 200. However, the margins required to constitute a swing state are vague, and can vary between groups of analysts. It was thought that left-leaning states in the Rust Belt could become more conservative, as Trump had strong appeal among many blue-collar workers. They represent a large portion of the American populace and were a major factor in Trump's eventual nomination. Trump's primary campaign was propelled by victories in Democratic states, and his supporters often did not identify as Republican.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
Media reports indicated that both candidates planned to concentrate on Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina. Among the Republican-leaning states, potential Democratic targets included Nebraska's second congressional district, Georgia, and Arizona. Trump's relatively poor polling in some traditionally Republican states, such as Utah, raised the possibility that they could vote for Clinton, despite easy wins there by recent Republican nominees. However, many analysts asserted that these states were not yet viable Democratic destinations. Several sites and individuals publish electoral predictions. These generally rate the race by the likelihood for each party to win a state. The "tossup" label is usually used to indicate that neither party has an advantage, "lean" to indicate a party has a slight edge, "likely" to indicate a party has a clear but not overwhelming advantage, and "safe" to indicate a party has an advantage that cannot be overcome.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
As the parameters of the race established themselves, analysts converged on a narrower list of contested states, which were relatively similar to those of recent elections. On November 7, the Cook Political Report categorized Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as states with close races. Additionally, a district from each of Maine and Nebraska were considered to be coin flips.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight listed twenty-two states as potentially competitive about a month before the election—Maine's two at-large electoral votes, New Mexico, Minnesota, Michigan, Colorado, Virginia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Nevada, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Arizona, Georgia, Alaska, South Carolina, Texas, Indiana, Missouri, and Utah—as well as Maine's second and Nebraska's second congressional districts. Nate Silver, the publication's editor-in-chief, subsequently removed Texas, South Carolina, Missouri, and Indiana from the list after the race tightened significantly. These conclusions were supported by models such as the Princeton Elections Consortium, the New York Times Upshot, and punditry evaluations from Sabato's Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
Hillary Clinton won states like New Mexico by less than 10 percentage points. Among the states where the candidates finished at a margin of within seven percent, Clinton won Virginia (13 electoral votes), Colorado (9), Maine (2), Minnesota (10), and New Hampshire (4). On the other hand, Trump won Michigan (16), Pennsylvania (20), Wisconsin (10), Florida (29), North Carolina (15), Arizona (11), Nebraska's second district (1), and Georgia (16). States won by Obama in the 2012, such as Ohio (18), Iowa (6), and Maine's second district (1), were also won by Trump.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Battleground states
The close result in Maine was not expected by most commentators, nor were Trump's victory of over 10 points in the second district and their disparities. The dramatic shift of Midwestern states towards Trump were contrasted in the media against the relative movement of Southern states towards the Democrats. For example, former Democratic strongholds such as Minnesota and Maine leaned towards the GOP while still voting Democratic, albeit by smaller margins. Meanwhile, Iowa voted more Republican than Texas did, Georgia was more Democratic than Ohio, and the margin of victory for Trump was greater in North Carolina than Arizona. Trump's smaller victories in Alaska and Utah also took some experts by surprise.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Close states
States where the margin of victory was under 1% (50 electoral votes; 46 won by Trump, 4 by Clinton):


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Close states
States/districts where the margin of victory was between 1% and 5% (83 electoral votes; 56 won by Trump, 27 by Clinton):


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Close states
States where the margin of victory was between 5% and 10% (94 electoral votes; 76 won by Trump, 18 by Clinton):


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Close states
Red denotes states or congressional districts won by Republican Donald Trump; blue denotes those won by Democrat Hillary Clinton.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
Results by state, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
Results by vote distribution among states. The size of each state's pie chart is proportional to its number of electoral votes.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
Results by county. Red denotes counties that went to Trump; blue denotes counties that went to Clinton.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
Results by county, shaded according to winning candidate's percentage of the vote


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
A discontinuous cartogram of the 2016 United States presidential election


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
A continuous cartogram of the 2016 United States presidential election


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
A discretized cartogram of the 2016 United States presidential election using squares


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
A discretized cartogram of the 2016 United States presidential election using hexagons


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
Results of election by congressional district, shaded by winning candidate's percentage of the vote


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
Results by county, shaded according to percentage of the vote for Johnson


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Maps
Results by county, shaded according to percentage of the vote for Jill Stein


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Voter demographics
Voter demographic data for 2016 were collected by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, a consortium of ABC News, CBS News, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, and the Associated Press. The voter survey is based on exit polls completed by 24,537 voters leaving 350 voting places throughout the United States on Election Day, in addition to 4,398 telephone interviews with early and absentee voters.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Voter demographics
Trump's crucial victories in the Midwest were aided in large part by his strong margins among non-college whites — while Obama lost those voters by a margin of 10 points in 2012, Clinton lost this group by 20 percent. The election also represented the first time that Republicans performed better among lower-income whites than among affluent white voters. Clinton however had the majority amongst lower-income Americans overall.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Voter demographics
Trump narrowed Clinton's margin compared to Obama by seven points among blacks and African-Americans, eight points among Latinos, and 11 points among Asian-Americans. Meanwhile, Trump increased his lead with non-Hispanic white voters through one percent over Mitt Romney’s performance, and American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Pacific Islanders shifted their support towards the Republican candidate using the same relative amount. Additionally, although 74 percent of Muslim voters supported Clinton, Trump nearly doubled his support among those voters compared to Mitt Romney at 13 percent, according to the Council on American–Islamic Relations exit poll.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Voter demographics
However, “more convincing data” from the polling firm Latino Decisions indicates that Clinton received a higher share of the Hispanic vote, and Trump a lower share, than the Edison exit polls showed. Using wider, more geographically and linguistically representative sampling, Latino Decisions concluded that Clinton won 79% of Hispanic voters (also an improvement over Obama's share in 2008 and 2012), while Trump won only 18% (lower than previous Republicans such as Romney and McCain). Additionally, the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study found that Clinton's share of the Hispanic vote was one percentage point higher than Obama's in 2012, while Trump's was seven percentage points lower than Romney's.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Voter demographics
Similarly, a large, multi-lingual study by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund found that Clinton won 79% of Asian-American voters, higher than the Edison exit poll showed, while Trump won only 18%, a decrease from McCain's and Romney's numbers. Furthermore, according to the AALDEF's report, Trump received merely 2% of the Muslim-American vote, whereas Clinton received 97%. The low percentage of Muslim votes for Trump may have been influenced by much of his rhetoric during the campaign regarding Muslims and Islam. The issue of islamophobia was demonstrated to be an important political issue for Muslim voters; an ISPU study done in 2016 found that, “...outside the issues of discrimination and Islamophobia there aren't, like, one or two big issues that unite all Muslims.”


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Viewership
The 2016 election was highly-viewed, setting viewership records on CNN and Fox News. Over 28 million people watched the election on cable television, with 63.99 million viewers including broadcast television. While more highly-viewed than 2012 (60.86 million viewers), it was less viewed than 2008 (71.5 million viewers).


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Viewership
Cable TV viewers 25 to 542:00 to 3:00 a.m. EST


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
Various methods were used to forecast the outcome of the 2016 election. There were many competing election forecast approaches including Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, The Upshot at The New York Times, Daily Kos, Princeton Election Consortium, Cook Political Report, Rothenberg and Gonzales, PollyVote, Sabato's Crystal Ball and Electoral-Vote.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
These models mostly showed a Democratic advantage since the nominees were confirmed, and were supported by pundits and statisticians, including Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, Nate Cohn at The New York Times, and Larry Sabato from the Crystal Ball newsletter, who predicted a Democratic victory in competitive presidential races and projected consistent leads in several battleground states around the country. The near-unanimity of forecasters in predicting a Clinton victory may have been the result of groupthink.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
However, FiveThirtyEight's model pointed to the possibility of an Electoral College-popular vote split widening in the final weeks based on Trump's improvement in swing states like Florida or Pennsylvania. This was due to the demographics targeted by Trump's campaign which lived in big numbers there, in addition to Clinton's poor performance in several of those swing states in comparison with Obama's performance in 2012, as well as having a big number of her potential voters in very populated traditionally 'blue' states, but also in some very populated states traditionally 'red', like Texas, which were projected safe for Trump.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
Early exit polls generally favored Clinton. After the polls closed and some of the results came in, the forecasts were found to be inaccurate, as Trump performed better in the competitive Midwestern states, such as Iowa, Ohio, and Minnesota, than expected. Three states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan) which were considered to be part of Clinton's firewall, were won by Trump. Of the states in the Great Lakes region, Clinton won the swing state of Minnesota by one point, as well as traditional Democratic strongholds such as New York and Illinois with populous urban centers.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
This result stands in contrast to that of 2012, when President Barack Obama won all but Indiana, which he carried in 2008. This table displays the final polling average published by Real Clear Politics on November 7, the actual electoral margin, and the over-performance by either candidate relative to the polls.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
Many pollsters were puzzled by the failure of mainstream forecasting models to predict the outcome of the 2016 election. Some journalists compared the 2016 election to the failure of prognosticator Arthur Henning in the "Dewey Defeats Truman" incident from the 1948 presidential election. Sean Trende, writing for RealClearPolitics, wrote that many of the polls were accurate, but that the pundits' interpretation of these polls neglected polling error. Nate Silver found that the high number of undecided and third-party voters in the election was neglected in many of these models, and that many of these voters decided to vote for Trump.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
According to a February 2018 study by Public Opinion Quarterly, the main sources of polling error were "a late swing in vote preference toward Trump and a pervasive failure to adjust for over-representation of college graduates (who favored Clinton)," whereas the share of "shy" Trump voters (who declined to admit their support for Trump to the pollsters) proved to be negligible. Political scientist Lloyd Gruber said, "One of the major casualties of the 2016 election season has been the reputation of political science, a discipline whose practitioners had largely dismissed Donald Trump's chances of gaining the Republican nomination." Trump said that he was surprised, and added "I always used to believe in [polls]. I don't believe them anymore."


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
FiveThirtyEight's final polls-plus forecast predicted 18 states, plus the second congressional districts of Maine and Nebraska, with an interval of confidence lower than 90%. However, every major forecaster, including FiveThirtyEight, The New York Times Upshot, prediction markets aggregator PredictWise, ElectionBettingOdds from Maxim Lott and John Stossel, the DailyKos, the Princeton Election Consortium, the Huffington Post, the Cook Political Report, Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, and the Rothenberg and Gonzales Report, called every state the same way (although Cook and Rothenberg-Gonzales left two and five states as toss-ups, respectively). The lone exception was Maine's 2nd congressional district.


2016 United States presidential election, Results, Comparison to polls and other forecasts
Of the forecasters who published results on the district, the Times gave Trump a 64% chance of winning and PredictWise a 52% chance, FiveThirtyEight gave Clinton a 51% chance of winning in polls-only and 54% in polls-plus, Princeton gave her a 60% chance, Cook labelled it a toss-up, and Sabato leaned it towards Trump. The following table displays the final winning probabilities given by each outlet, along with the final electoral result. The states shown have been identified by Politico, WhipBoard, The New York Times, and the Crystal Ball as battlegrounds.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies
Trump's victory, considered unlikely by most forecasts, was characterized as an "upset" and as "shocking" by the media. Trump himself thought he would lose even as the polls were closing.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Protests
Following the announcement of Trump's election, large protests broke out across the United States with some continuing for several days.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Protests
Protesters have held up a number of different signs and chanted various shouts including "Not my president" and "We don't accept the president-elect." The movement organized on Twitter under the hashtags #Antitrump and #NotMyPresident.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Protests
High school and college students walked out of classes to protest. At a few protests fires were lit, flags and other items were burned and people yelled derogatory remarks about Trump. Rioters also broke glass at certain locations. Celebrities such as Madonna, Cher, and Lady Gaga took part in New York. Kendrick Lamar's song "Alright" was used repeatedly by protestors, despite the movement receiving no endorsement from Lamar himself. Some protesters took to blocking freeways in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Portland, Oregon, and were dispersed by police in the early hours of the morning.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Protests
In a number of cities, protesters were dispersed with rubber bullets, pepper spray and bean-bags fired by police. In New York City, calls were made to continue the protests over the coming days after the election. Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti expressed understanding of the protests and praised those who peacefully wanted to make their voices heard.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Vote tampering concerns
After the election, computer scientists, including J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, urged the Clinton campaign to request an election recount in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania (three swing states where Trump had won narrowly) for the purpose of excluding the possibility that the hacking of electronic voting machines had influenced the recorded outcome. However, statistician Nate Silver performed a regression analysis which demonstrated that the alleged discrepancy between paper ballots and electronic voting machines "completely disappears once you control for race and education level."


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Vote tampering concerns
On November 25, 2016, the Obama administration said the results from November 8 "accurately reflect the will of the American people." The following day, the White House released another statement, saying: "the federal government did not observe any increased level of malicious cyberactivity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election Day."


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Vote tampering concerns
Donald Trump and New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu both complained that liberal voters from Massachusetts were illegally bused into New Hampshire for the 2016 election, and Scott Brown blamed the same phenomenon for losing his senate race in 2014. The New Hampshire Secretary of State and New Hampshire Department of Justice issued a report in 2018 regarding complaints of voters being bused in from Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts for the 2016 election.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Vote tampering concerns
They found that in every case, field inspectors were able to determine that the voters were from New Hampshire, though they were riding a bus operated by an out-of-state company (which has its name and address written on the outside of the bus, presumably the source of the confusion). Out of 743,000 votes cast, four were determined to be cast illegally, either because the voters were told to go to the wrong location, or because the voter believed they were able to vote in each town in which they owned property. Out of about 6,000 same-day voter registrations in the state, the report says only 66 voters could not have their residency confirmed (though fraud is not the only explanation for such a failure).


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Recount petitions
On November 23, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein launched a public fundraiser to pay for recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, asserting that the election's outcome had been affected by hacking in those states; Stein did not provide evidence for her claims. Changing the outcome of these three states would make Clinton the winner, and this would require showing that fewer than 60,000 votes had been counted for Trump which should have been counted for Clinton.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Recount petitions
Stein filed for a recount in Wisconsin on November 25, after which Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias said their campaign would join Stein's recount efforts in that state and possibly others "in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides." Stein subsequently filed for a recount in Pennsylvania on November 28, and in Michigan on November 30. Concurrently, American Delta Party/Reform Party presidential candidate Rocky De La Fuente sought and was granted a partial recount in Nevada that was unrelated to Stein's efforts.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Recount petitions
President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement denouncing Stein's Wisconsin recount request saying, "The people have spoken and the election is over." Trump further commented that the recount "is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded." The Trump campaign and Republican Party officials moved to block Stein's three recount efforts through state and federal courts.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Recount petitions
U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith ordered a halt to the recount in Michigan on December 7, dissolving a previous temporary restraining order against the Michigan Board of Elections that allowed the recount to continue, stating in his order: "Plaintiffs have not presented evidence of tampering or mistake. Instead, they present speculative claims going to the vulnerability of the voting machinery—but not actual injury."


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Recount petitions
On December 12, U.S. District Judge Paul Diamond rejected an appeal by the Green Party and Jill Stein to force a recount in Pennsylvania, stating that suspicion of a hacked Pennsylvania election "borders on the irrational" and that granting the Green Party's recount bid could "ensure that no Pennsylvania vote counts" given the December 13, 2016, federal deadline to certify the vote for the Electoral College. Meanwhile, the Wisconsin recount was allowed to continue as it was nearing completion and had uncovered no significant irregularities.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Recount petitions
The recounts in Wisconsin and Nevada were completed on schedule, resulting in only minor changes to vote tallies. A partial recount of Michigan ballot found some precinct imbalances in Detroit, which were corrected. A subsequent state audit found no evidence of voter fraud and concluded that the mistakes, which were "almost entirely" caused by poll-worker mistakes attributed to poor training, did not impair "the ability of Detroit residents to cast a ballot and have their vote counted." The overall outcome of the election remained unchanged by the recount efforts.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Electoral College lobbying
Intense lobbying (in one case involving claims of harassment and death threats) and grass-roots campaigns were directed at various GOP electors of the United States Electoral College to convince a sufficient number of them (37) to not vote for Trump, thus precluding a Trump presidency. Members of the Electoral College themselves started a campaign for other members to "vote their conscience for the good of America" in accordance with Alexander Hamilton's Federalist Paper No. 68. Former candidate Lawrence Lessig and attorney Laurence Tribe established The Electors Trust on December 5 under the aegis of Equal Citizens to provide pro bono legal counsel as well as a secure communications platform for members of the Electoral College who were considering a vote of conscience against Trump.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Electoral College lobbying
On December 6, Colorado Secretary of State Wayne W. Williams castigated Democratic electors who had filed a lawsuit in Federal court to have the state law binding them to the popular vote (in their case for Hillary Clinton) overturned.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Electoral College lobbying
On December 10, ten electors, in an open letter headed by Christine Pelosi to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, demanded an intelligence briefing in light of Russian interference in the election to help Trump win the presidency. Fifty-eight additional electors subsequently added their names to the letter, bringing the total to 68 electors from 17 different states. On December 16, the briefing request was denied.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Electoral College lobbying
On December 19, several electors voted against their pledged candidates: two against Trump and five against Clinton. A further three electors attempted to vote against Clinton but were replaced or forced to vote again. The 115th United States Congress officially certified the results on January 6, 2017.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Faithless electors
In the Electoral College vote on December 19, for the first time since 1808, multiple faithless electors voted against their pledged qualified presidential candidate. Five Democrats rebelled in Washington and Hawaii, while two Republicans rebelled in Texas. Two Democratic electors, one in Minnesota and one in Colorado, were replaced after voting for Bernie Sanders and John Kasich, respectively. Electors in Maine conducted a second vote after one of its members voted for Sanders; the elector then voted for Clinton. Likewise, for the first time since 1896, multiple faithless electors voted against the pledged qualified vice presidential candidate.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Faithless electors
Of the faithless votes, Colin Powell and Elizabeth Warren were the only two to receive more than one; Powell received three electoral votes for president and Warren received two for vice president. Receiving one valid electoral vote each were Sanders, John Kasich, Ron Paul and Faith Spotted Eagle for president, and Carly Fiorina, Susan Collins, Winona LaDuke and Maria Cantwell for vice president. Sanders is the first Jewish American to receive an electoral vote for president.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Faithless electors
LaDuke is the first Green Party member to receive an electoral vote, and Paul is the third member of the Libertarian Party to do so, following the party's presidential and vice-presidential nominees each getting one vote in 1972. It is the first election with faithless electors from more than one political party. The seven people to receive electoral votes for president were the most in a single election since 1796.


2016 United States presidential election, Post-election events and controversies, Handling of illegal votes
Critics alleged racial bias after comparing the different sentences handed down to two white people and one black person who were convicted of attempting to vote illegally in the 2016 presidential election.


2016 United States presidential election in Alabama
The 2016 United States presidential election in Alabama was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Alabama voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Alabama has nine electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2016 United States presidential election in Alabama
Alabama has voted for the Republican candidate in every election since it was won by Ronald Reagan in 1980. As such, Trump was heavily favored to win the state. On the day of the election, Trump won the election in Alabama with 62.08% of the vote, while Clinton received 34.36% of the vote. The state had given 60.55% of its votes to Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, meaning that it had shifted 1.53% more Republican from the previous election. Trump's margin of victory in Alabama was 27.72%, a 5.53% increase from Romney's 22.19% margin of victory.


2016 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election, Predictions
The following are final 2016 predictions from various organizations for Alabama as of Election Day.


2016 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election, Turnout
According to the Alabama Secretary of State website, voter turnout was 66.82% with 2,137,482 ballots cast out of 3,198,703 registered voters.


2016 United States presidential election in Alabama, General election, Electors
Alabama had 9 electors in 2016 all of them voted for Donald Trump for president and Mike Pence for vice president.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska
The 2016 United States presidential election in Alaska was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the nationwide presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Alaska voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Alaska has three electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska
Trump carried the state with 51.28% of the vote, while Clinton received 36.55% of the vote. This marked a return to Alaska's streak of giving Democrats under 40% of the vote share, after Barack Obama won just over 40% in 2012. Alaska has voted Republican in every election since 1968, and since its admission to the Union in 1959, it has only voted for the Democratic candidate on one occasion: Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska
The state is known for strongly supporting third parties, including Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in 2012; Alaska was his third-strongest state. He ran again as the Libertarian Party's 2016 nominee and appeared on the ballot in Alaska. On the day of the election, he garnered 5.88% of the vote, making Alaska his third-strongest state again after New Mexico and North Dakota. Johnson's performance was the best for a Libertarian since 1980, and the best third party performance since Ralph Nader in 2000.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska
Alaska remained aligned with the Republican Party due to oil development and Second Amendment issues.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, Background
The incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, a Democrat and former U.S. Senator from Illinois, was first elected president in the 2008 election, running with former Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Defeating the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, with 52.9% of the popular vote and 68% of the electoral vote, Obama succeeded two-term Republican President George W. Bush, the former Governor of Texas. Obama and Biden were reelected in the 2012 presidential election, defeating former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with 51.1% of the popular vote and 61.7% of electoral votes.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, Background
Although Barack Obama's approval rating in the RealClearPolitics poll tracking average remained between 40 and 50 percent for most of his second term, it has experienced a surge in early 2016 and reached its highest point since 2012 during June of that year. Analyst Nate Cohn has noted that a strong approval rating for President Obama would equate to a strong performance for the Democratic candidate, and vice versa.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, Background
Following his second term, President Obama was not eligible for another reelection. In October 2015, Obama's running-mate and two-term Vice President Biden decided not to enter the race for the Democratic presidential nomination either. With their term expiring on January 20, 2017, the electorate is asked to elect a new president, the 45th president and 48th vice president of the United States, respectively.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, Background, Political landscape in Alaska
The state of Alaska has given its electoral votes to the Republican ticket in every election year since 1968 and only once to a Democratic ticket since statehood. However, in 2012, it had the largest swing in favor of the Democratic Party with President Obama only losing by 14 points compared to his 2008 loss by 22 points.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, Background, Political landscape in Alaska
Alaska also has a history of supporting third-party candidates at the presidential level. Alaska was the second-best state for Ross Perot in the 1992 election, with Ross Perot garnering 28% of the vote. Alaska was Nader's strongest state in the 2000 presidential election, giving him 10% in his presidential bid. Alaska was also the third-best state for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson in the 2012 election, giving him 2.46% of the vote,  behind Johnson's home state of New Mexico, and Montana. For this reason, Alaska has been considered to be one of Libertarian party nominee Gary Johnson's strongest states in the 2016 election.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, Caucuses, Republican caucus, Controversy
At the Republican National Convention, Alaska's floor votes were all recorded for Donald Trump by the convention secretary, even though the Alaska delegation read their votes according to the results of the caucuses: 12 for Cruz, 11 for Trump and 5 for Rubio. An Alaska delegate challenged the results as recorded. However, RNC chair Reince Priebus defended the actions of the convention secretary, saying that the delegates were bound to Trump.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Predictions
The following are final 2016 predictions from various organizations for Alaska as of Election Day.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Turnout
According to the Alaska Division of Election voter turnout was about 60.77%, 321,271 ballots were cast out of 528,671 voters.


2016 United States presidential election in Alaska, General election, Electors
Alaska had 3 electors in 2016; all of them voted for Donald Trump for president and Mike Pence for vice president.


2016 United States presidential election in American Samoa
American Samoa did not participate in the November 8, 2016, general election because it is a territory and not a state. However, the five non-incorporated territories that send Delegates to the House of Representatives did participate in the presidential primaries.


2016 United States presidential election in American Samoa
In the presidential primaries, American Samoa voters expressed their preferences for the Democratic and Republican parties' respective nominees for president. Registered members of each party could only vote in their party's primary, while voters who were unaffiliated were allowed to choose any one primary in which to vote.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona
The 2016 United States presidential election in Arizona was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential elections in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Arizona voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Arizona has 11 electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona
Notably, Maricopa County, the state's most populous county, went more Democratic than the state as a whole. The county had not voted for a Democrat since Harry S. Truman in 1948. Therefore, Trump's narrow win in the county suggested the Republican Party was losing ground in the state. In fact, the county and the state would go on to vote Democratic in 2020. Despite the rest of the country swinging to the right, Arizona decreased its margin of victory from 9.03% in 2012 to only 3.5% this year.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, Primary elections, Green primary
The Arizona Green Party held its primary on March 22. Jill Stein won with 82% of the vote, and the overall number of voters that took place in the primary saw an increase from 561 in 2012 to 770 in 2016. Only two candidates qualified for the primary:


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, Polling
The first poll conducted in March 2016 showed a tie between Clinton and Trump. From March 2016 to October, the polling in this normally Republican state was quite close, with neither candidate seriously leading. In late October, Trump gained momentum and won every pre-election poll in the weeks leading up to the election. The final poll showed Trump leading Clinton 46% to 41% and the average of the final 3 polls showed Trump leading 47% to 43%, which was accurate compared to the results.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Predictions
The following are final 2016 predictions from various organizations for Arizona as of Election Day.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, By congressional district
Trump won 5 of 9 congressional districts, including one represented by a Democrat. Clinton also carried a district represented by a Republican.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Turnout
Voter Turnout was 74.17% with 2,661,497 ballots cast out of 3,588,466 voters.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Analysis
Donald Trump won Arizona with a margin of 3.5%, a reduced margin from Mitt Romney's 9.03% margin in 2012. Arizona was among the eleven states in which Hillary Clinton outperformed Barack Obama's margin in 2012, primarily due to an increase in Hispanic voter turnout in southern Arizona, including heavily populated Maricopa County. Maricopa County in particular went from a 10.69% margin of victory for Romney in 2012 to a 2.84% margin of victory for Trump—one of only three times that a Democrat has come closer to carrying the county since 1964. Indeed, the only closer margin since that time came in 1996, when Bill Clinton lost it by 2.2%.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Analysis
Clinton also came close to winning Yuma County, and would have been the first Democrat to do so since the county was separated from La Paz County in the 1980s. Other rural counties that had been won by Bill Clinton in the 1990s continued to trend in a Republican direction.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Analysis
In terms of percentage of the vote, Trump's strongest support was in the northwest of the state whereas Clinton did best in the southern-central region.


2016 United States presidential election in Arizona, General election, Electors
Arizona had 11 electors in 2016. All of them voted for Donald Trump for president and Mike Pence for vice president.


2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas
The 2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Arkansas voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Arkansas has six electoral votes in the Electoral College.


2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas
Although Clinton once served as First Lady of Arkansas for 12 years as the wife of then Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton, Arkansas was considered to be a state Trump would win or otherwise a safe red state. Bill Clinton won the state twice in 1992 and 1996, but the state has trended Republican in every election since 2000. Trump won the state with 60.57% of the vote, and Hillary Clinton received 33.65% of the vote. The Republican candidate has carried Arkansas in every election since 2000. This is also the first election in which the state simultaneously voted for a Republican presidential candidate and an incumbent Republican Senate candidate. Additionally, Arkansas was one of eleven states that voted twice for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016.


2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas
Trump's 60.57% share of the vote is tied with Mitt Romney's 60.57% in 2012, making both candidates' performances the best result for the Republicans in Arkansas since Richard Nixon in 1972. However, Trump bested Romney in terms of margin, winning by 26.92% versus Romney's 23.69%. The Prohibition Party candidate, James Hedges, also had the notable achievement of finishing third in Arkansas County, ahead of major third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. Arkansas County was also the only county in the country where he did so.


2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas, Primary elections
On March 1, 2016, in the presidential primaries,  Arkansas voters expressed their preferences for the Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, Constitution, and Prohibition parties' respective nominees for president. Registered members of each party only voted in their party's primary, while voters who were unaffiliated chose any one primary in which to vote.


2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Predictions
The following are final 2016 predictions from various organizations for Arkansas as of Election Day.


2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, By congressional district
The Republican Party won all four of the state's congressional districts.


2016 United States presidential election in Arkansas, General election, Turnout
The voter turnout in Arkansas was 64.65% with 1,137,772 ballots cast out of 1,759,974 registered voters.


2016 United States presidential election in California
The 2016 United States presidential election in California was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. California voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. California has 55 electoral votes in the Electoral College, the most of any state.


2016 United States presidential election in California
Clinton won the state with 61.73 percent of the vote and a 30.11 percent margin.


2016 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections
On June 7, 2016, in the presidential primaries, California voters expressed their preferences for the Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, and American Independent parties' respective nominees for president.


2016 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections
While California has had a top-two candidates open primary system since 2011, presidential primaries are still partisan races. Registered members of each party may only vote in their party's presidential primary. Unaffiliated voters may choose any one primary in which to vote, if the party allows such voters to participate. For 2016, the American Independent, Democratic, and Libertarian parties have chosen to allow voters registered with no party preference to request their respective party's presidential ballots.


2016 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, Republican primary
Five candidates appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot, four of whom had suspended their campaigns prior to the primary:


2016 United States presidential election in California, Primary elections, Republican primary
Donald Trump, the only candidate with an active campaign, won each Congressional district by substantial margins, as well as all the statewide delegates, to capture all 172 votes.