The 2016 Election Results

A total of 136,669,276 Americans voted in the November 8, 2016, presidential election, giving incumbent President W.C. Rutherford the highest share of the total popular vote ever recorded in the United States. On Election Day, Senator Thomas P. Leach of Arizona lost the election to Rutherford by the largest popular-vote margin in modern history. Leach accumulated 16 electoral votes to Rutherford's 522 and 37% of the popular vote (50,681,566) to Rutherford's 62% (85,126,027). Leach carried two states, Alabama and Mississippi, and earned the electoral vote from Nebraska's 3rd congressional district. Leach lost the popular vote in both the male and female electorate with 39% and 37%, respectively. Leach's most narrow regional loss was the South, with 42% of the popular vote, but he lost by greater margins in the East, Midwest, and West with 31%, 34%, and 40% of the popular vote, respectively. Rutherford was heavily favored over Leach among Catholics (76% to 24%) and by a smaller margin among Protestants (55% to 45%). Leach lost the independent vote to Rutherford (65% to 35%). Rutherford won the white vote over Leach (55% to 45%) and was heavily favored by the nonwhite electorate (79% to 21%). Leach lost the college-educated, high-school educated, and grade-school educated population to Rutherford (56% to 44%, 63% to 37%, and 67% to 33%, respectively).

Sharing Rutherford's ticket, Democratic candidates triumphed in 8 of the 12 Governor races, 24 of the 34 Senate contests, and 284 of the 435 elections for seats in the U.S. House. The detailed returns in this section indicate the official results of each race and the comparative strengths of the various candidates within each state and district.

National Presidential Vote
Here is the voter breakdown for all Presidential elector slates:

President Rutherford's total of 85,126,027 votes far exceeds the previous record of 69,498,516 votes received by him four years earlier, in 2012. His percentage of the total popular vote-62.3 percent-was the largest any candidate received since popular votes were first counted in 1824. (Runner-ups in the total vote percentage category are Johnson with 61.1 percent in 1964 and Roosevelt with 60.8 percent in 1936). Rutherford's percentage of the two-party popular vote, however, did not set a record. Rutherford received 62.7 percent of the two-party popular vote, compared to 65.2 percent for Coolidge in 1924 and 63.9 percent for Harding in 1920.

Rutherford's popular vote margin over Leach-34,444,461 votes-is an all-time record, easily exceeding the 17,995,488 vote margin by which Nixon defeated George McGovern in 1972 and the 16,878,120 vote plurality of Glenn over Phil Crane in 1984. The 2016 results contrasted vividly with those of 2012, when Rutherford, along with his running mate Carlotta Sanchez, defeated the Republican ticket of Romney and Pawlenty by a 10,571,026 popular vote margin. The 2016 Rutherford-Sanchez ticket received 15,627,511 more votes than the 2012 Rutherford-Sanchez ticket.

Rutherford set another record by carrying ten states by more then a million votes: California by 4,999,012; New York by 2,876,241; Texas by 2,406,443; Pennsylvania by 1,863,207; Massachusetts by 1,753,962; Illinois by 1,668,678; Michigan by 1,612,537; Ohio by 1,422,491; New Jersey by 1,230,010; Florida by 1,227,431. In twelve states and the District of Columbia, Rutherford received more than twice as many votes as Leach: D.C. (92.5 percent); Rhode Island (80.9 percent); Hawaii (78.8 percent); Massachusetts (76.2 percent); Vermont (74.7 percent); Delaware (69.5 percent); New Mexico (68.8 percent); Maine (68.8 percent); New York (68.6 percent); West Virginia (67.9 percent); Connecticut (67.8 percent); California (66.9 percent); Michigan (66.7 percent). Rutherford's narrowest margin was in Idaho, where he won by 12,701 votes (50.9 percent). In all, Rutherford was victorious in 48 states and the District of Columbia, winning 522 of the 538 electoral votes.

Leach, on the other hand, won only two states and one congressional district with 16 electoral votes. His total popular vote, 50,681,566, was 8,245,924 less than the vote of 58,927,490 which Romney received in 2012. Leach won 37.1 percent of the total vote and 37.3 percent of the two-party vote. His biggest victory was in Mississippi, where he won 59.4 percent of the vote-the only state that he carried by a double-digit margin. Leach's narrowest victory was in the neighboring state of Alabama, where he defeated Rutherford by 148,423 votes (52.5 percent).

Total Vote
The total Presidential vote of 136,669,276 was the largest in American history. The previous record was set in 2012, when 129,085,410 Americans voted for President. The percentage of eligible (voting age) persons voting in 2016 was down, however. In 2012, 58.1 percent of the 222,000,000 eligible voters voted for President; in 2016, 57.7 percent of the 237,000,000 eligible voters. To equal 2012's percentage turnout, 137,697,000 voters would have had to vote for President in 2016.

Presidential Vote by District
A measure of Leach's sweeping defeat was reflected in the fact that he won a majority of the vote in only 35 of the 435 congressional districts of the country. Rutherford, on the other hand, was victorious in 400 districts. The breakdowns:



Of the twelve non-southern districts which Leach carried, four were in his home state of Arizona, two in Illinois, and one each in California, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, and Utah. The Southern districts he carried were five each in Alabama and Florida, three each in Tennessee and Mississippi, two in Virginia, and one each in Georgia, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina. Leach did not carry any Congressional districts in the Eastern states.

In contrast to recent Presidential elections, in which the Republican Presidential candidates had consistently run ahead of their party's candidate for House seats, Leach won a greater percentage than the Republican House candidate in only 161 of the 435 House districts-and of the 161, 95 were in a single region, the South. Rutherford was the first Democratic President since John Glenn who won by greater margins than most of his party's House candidates:

Most of the non-Southern districts in which Leach ran stronger than the GOP House candidate were districts in which weak or unknown candidates were running on the Republican ticket. In fact, Leach ran ahead of only one of the 95 victorious Northern GOP House candidates-Mike Simpson (R-Idaho). He ran ahead of 34 of the 56 Republicans elected to the House in the South. The remaining 22 Republicans all did better in their congressional districts than Leach did.

Party Strength
The Rutherford sweep helped the Democrats achieve their greatest Congressional majorities in nearly five decades. They scored net gains of five seats in the Senate and 38 seats in the House of Representatives, making the new Senate party breakdown 60-40 in their favor and the new House breakdown 284-151 in their favor. On the Governorship level, the Republicans defended their seats in Indiana, Montana, and Utah but lost seats in North Carolina, North Dakota, and Vermont. The result: a net gain of three for the Democrats. The Democratic majority was therefore expanded. The new line-up: 30 Democrats, 20 Republicans.

Marginal Seats
Senate-Of the 23 Democratic Senators elected in 2016, 9 were elected by less than 55 percent of the vote. The closest win was registered by Sen. Catherine Cortez-Masto (D-Nevada), who won by only 675 votes (50.0 percent). Of the 11 Republicans elected to the Senate, three were elected by less than 55 percent.

House-62 Democrats and 49 Republicans were elected to the House by less than 55 percent of the vote. Two Republicans, each with 49.0 percent of the vote, had the closest calls. Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine) won by 285 votes while Rep. Mark Alliegro (R-Massachusetts) won by 494 votes.

Governors-Four of the eight Democratic Governors elected and one of the four Republicans elected to Governorships received less than 55 percent of the vote.