1996 United States presidential election in North Carolina

1996 United States presidential election in North Carolina
Dole 40-50% 50-60% 60-70%	Clinton 40-50% 50-60% 60-70%
President before election; Bill Clinton; Democratic	Elected President ; Bill Clinton; Democratic

The 1996 United States presidential election in North Carolina took place on 5 November 1996 as part of the 1996 United States presidential election. Voters in North Carolina chose 14 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.

North Carolina was narrowly won by the Republican nominee, Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, defeating incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton of Arkansas. Dole won with a plurality of 48.73% of the vote to Clinton's 44.04%, a margin of 4.69%. The Reform Party candidate, billionaire businessman Ross Perot, came in a distant third, with 6.68%.

In 1992, Clinton became the first Democrat to win the White House without carrying North Carolina since the founding of the Republican Party and the only Democrat to ever secure two terms in office without North Carolina. Although the state remained competitive in 1996, Dole improved non-trivially on George H. W. Bush's margin on his way to becoming the second losing Republican to carry the state, reflecting the state's increasingly Republican orientation. Much of Dole's strength came from wins in large counties anchored by, or adjoining, an urban area. He flipped Wake County, home of Raleigh and the largest county in the nation he flipped outside California, carrying it by 2.3%. His top two raw vote margins in the state came from Gaston County, a suburban county adjoining Mecklenburg County (home of Charlotte), and Forsyth County, home of Winston-Salem; in the latter, he increased Bush's '92 margin of 3.2% to 11.3%. He also shrank Bill Clinton's margin in Guilford County, home of Greensboro, from 4.2% to 1.0%. (Clinton did, however, flip Mecklenburg County itself.)

As of the 2020 presidential election^[update], this is the last election in which the following counties have voted for a Democratic presidential candidate: Camden, Duplin, Franklin, Haywood, Jones, Madison, Montgomery, Perquimans and Swain.^[1]

^ Sullivan, Robert David (June 29, 2016). "How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century". The National Catholic Review (America Magazine ed.).

[How-1] Sullivan, Robert David (June 29, 2016). "How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century". The National Catholic Review (America Magazine ed.).

[1]