United States presidential election in Mississippi, 2016 (Ferguson Scenario)



The 2016 United States presidential election in Mississippi took place on November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election, which was held throughout all fifty states and D.C. Voters chose six electors, or representatives to the Electoral College, who voted for President and Vice-President.

In a national landslide for incumbent President Henry T. Ferguson, Mississippi was one of only four states carried by Alabama U.S. Senator William H. Pryor, Jr. Ferguson successfully carried many Republican strongholds such as Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming; however, he lost Mississippi by 1% or just over 12,000 votes, the smallest margin of any state in the election. Mississippi's result was 22.29 percent more Republican than the country as a whole.

Key to Pryor's victory was his victory in Rankin County, which he won by forty percentage points. He was also aided by his solid margins along the Gulf Coast and in DeSoto County, compensating for Ferguson's considerable strength in the Black Belt regions of the state and in Hinds County, the state's most populous county, home to it's capital and largest city of Jackson. Nevertheless, even though Ferguson lost, this was the best Democratic performance in Mississippi since 1976, when Jimmy Carter had narrowly carried the state over Gerald Ford. Ferguson was the first Democrat since Carter in 1980 to carry Walthall County.