United States presidential election in Mississippi, 2016



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

The Republican Party candidate, Senator Thomas P. Leach of Arizona, won Mississippi by a 19.69% margin of victory against incumbent President William C. Rutherford, making the state a whopping 44 percentage points more Republican then the national average. The last time Mississippi voted Democratic was for Adlai E. Stevenson in 1956, the longest drought of any state in the Union. Leach carried the majority of the counties and congressional districts.

Background
The last Democratic presidential nominee to win Mississippi was Adlai E. Stevenson in 1956. Afterwards, the national Democratic Party's support for civil rights, which had already caused the state to bolt to Strom Thurmond in 1948, and had contributed to Stevenson's decline in performance between his two elections against Dwight D. Eisenhower, alienated Mississippi's conservative white electorate to a considerable extent. In 1960, an unpledged slate won the popular vote in the state, and these electors subsequently voted for segregationist Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd. Four years later, in 1964, conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona won Mississippi with 87.14% of the popular vote, becoming the first Republican to carry the state since Reconstruction, and sweeping all eighty-two of its counties. In 1968, Mississippi gave over 60% of the vote to the American Independent Party ticket of segregationist Governor George C. Wallace.

Then in 1972, it was Richard Nixon's best state, as he carried it with 78% of the vote against George McGovern. In 1976, Gerald Ford managed to narrowly hold the state against Jimmy Carter, reflective of his narrow reelection nationwide. In 1980 and 1984, Mississippi rejected Democratic President John Glenn; in 1980, in fact, it was one of the few states where Vice-President Bob Dole improved over Ford's performance in 1976. From 1988 through 1996, Mississippi voted by decisive margins for Republican nominees George H.W. Bush and John McCain. It was last remotely competitive in 2004, when Al Gore lost the state by slightly over 9%. In 2008 and 2012, Mississippi was unwavering in its support for the Republican ticket, though Rutherford did improve marginally over how John Kerry had done. In 2016, he registered another improvement within the state, but most of its white voters, fiercely conservative and staunchly Republican as ever, responded warmly to Senator Leach's calls for limited government and for an aggressive foreign policy.

Vote
Ultimately, Senator Leach defeated President Rutherford in the state by a margin of 19.69%, or 238,123 votes, comparable to what had been predicted in most of the general election polls throughout the campaign. Mississippi was one of only two states in the country to vote for Leach in 2016, along with the neighboring state of Alabama. As one of the most racially polarized states in the country in presidential elections, Mississippi's results were reflective of its demographic makeup. According to exit polls, just 14% of white voters voted for President Rutherford and 10% of African Americans voted for Senator Leach. Rutherford received his main support in the Black Belt counties along the Mississippi River, which are predominantly African-American in population, and in Hinds County, home to the state's capital and largest city of Jackson. Leach dominated most of the rural counties, won Harrison, Jackson, Rankin, and DeSoto Counties by wide margins, and carried three of the state's four congressional districts.