Presidential election results map. Red denotes states won by Trump/Pence and blue denotes those won by Clinton/Kaine. Numbers indicate electoral votes cast by each state and the District of Columbia. On election night, Trump won 306 electors and Clinton 232. However, because of seven faithless electors (five Democratic and two Republican), Trump received 304 votes and Clinton 227.
The tone of the election campaign was widely characterized as divisive, negative, and troubling.[10][11][12] Trump faced controversy over his views on race and immigration, incidents of violence against protesters at his rallies,[13][14][15] and numerous sexual misconduct allegations including the Access Hollywood tape. Clinton's popularity and public image were tarnished by concerns about her ethics and trustworthiness,[16] and a controversy and subsequent FBI investigation regarding her improper use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state, which received more media coverage than any other topic during the campaign.[17][18] Clinton led in almost every nationwide and swing-state poll, with some predictive models giving her over a 90 percent chance of victory.[19][20]
On election day, Trump over-performed his polls, winning several key swing states for a majority in the Electoral College while losing the nationwide popular vote by 2.87 million votes.[21] Trump flipped six states that had voted Democratic in 2012: Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, as well as Maine's 2nd congressional district. He gained a combined 46 electoral votes from his pivotal upset victories in the Democratic leaning Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which he carried by fewer than 80,000 votes in the three states combined. Trump's surprise victories were perceived to have been assisted by Clinton's lack of campaigning in Wisconsin, the rightward shift of the white working class,[22] and the influence of Sanders–Trump voters who chose to back Donald Trump after Bernie Sanders dropped out of the primaries.[23][24][25] Ultimately, Trump received 304 electoral votes and Clinton 227, as two faithless electors defected from Trump and five from Clinton. Trump was the first president with neither prior public service nor military experience.
With ballot access to the entire national electorate, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson received nearly 4.5 million votes (3.27%), the highest nationwide vote share for a third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1996,[26] while Green Party nominee Jill Stein received almost 1.45 million votes (1.06%). Independent candidate Evan McMullin received 21.4% of the vote in his home state of Utah, the highest share of the vote for a non-major party candidate in any state since 1992.[27]
On January 6, 2017, the United States Intelligence Community concluded that the Russian government had interfered in the 2016 elections,[28][29] and that it did so in order to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency".[30] A Special Counsel investigation of alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign began in May 2017,[31][32] and ended in March 2019, concluded that Russian interference in favor of Trump's candidacy occurred "in sweeping and systematic fashion" but did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.[33][34]
^Wang, Sam (November 8, 2016). "Final Projections 2016". Princeton Election Consortium. Archived from the original on January 9, 2022. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
^Carnes, Nicholas; Lupu, Noam. "The White Working Class and the 2016 Election"(PDF). noamlupu.com. Noam Lupu. Retrieved November 1, 2024. White working-class Americans have been supporting Republican presidential candidates at higher rates in recent elections, but that process long predates 2016, and narratives that center on Trump's alleged appeal obscure this important long-term trend.
^Mueller ReportArchived April 19, 2019, at the Wayback Machine, vol. I, p. 1: "The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion. [...] Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."
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