2016 United States presidential election in Minnesota
The 2016 United States presidential election in Minnesota was held on November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all fifty states and the District of Columbia participated. The state was won by Hillary Clinton. On March 1, 2016, in the precinct caucuses, Minnesota voted for their preferences for the Democratic, Republican, Green and Libertarian parties' respective nominees for president. Minnesota was won with a plurality by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and a 1.5% margin, the eleventh consecutive Democratic presidential win in the state, which has not voted for a Republican since Richard Nixon in 1972. This was the closest presidential election in Minnesota since 1984, when Walter Mondale carried the state by a 0.2% margin, the only state not carried by Ronald Reagan. However, the state voted more Republican than the national average for the first time since 1952. Minnesota had the highest voter turnout in the nation with approximately 75 percent of the state's eligible voters participating in the general election.
Caucuses
Democratic caucuses
Bernie Sanders received the most votes and the most delegates in the precinct caucuses. The 2016 turnout was slightly lower than the 2008 tally of 214,066, when Obama won with 142,109 votes, to Clinton's 68,994. Bernie Sanders won every congressional district in Minnesota.
Republican caucuses
The 38 delegates from Minnesota were allocated in this way. If a candidate received more than 85% of the vote, they would get all of 38 delegates. Otherwise, 24 delegates would be allocated proportionally based on the votes per congressional district. On top of that, there were 10 at-large delegates and 3party leaders. All of the at-large delegates were allocated proportionally based on the popular vote with a mandatory threshold of 10% to receive any delegates; if no one got at least 10%, all candidates would be eligible to get delegates. Some media outlets recorded the votes by congressional district, rather than by county. Rubio won districts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area as well as the southern part of the state. Cruz won districts 6, 7 and 8 in the St. Cloud area and rural north.
Green caucuses
The Green Party of Minnesota held caucuses on March 1 in Saint Paul, Minneapolis, Bemidji, White Bear Lake, Blaine, Grand Rapids, and Willmar. Jill Stein won the caucuses with 84.3% of the vote. The delegates apportioned to each candidate will be decided at the state convention in St. Cloud, Minnesota in June. The results of the caucuses are as follows:
Libertarian caucuses
The Minnesota caucus was run on March 1, 2016, using ranked choice voting. Gary Johnson took over 75% of the 226 first-preference votes cast, with John McAfee a distant second on 11.5% and Austin Petersen third on 7.5%.
General election
Polling
Candidates
The following had write-in status:
Analysis
Minnesota voted 6.2 percent less Democratic from the 2012 presidential election, a much larger shift than the nation at large. Donald Trump only increased his vote tally compared to Mitt Romney in 2012 by 2,726 votes which resulted in a percentage of vote loss of 0.04%. The difference in Democratic voting was largely attributed to Independent or Write-In candidates. The most significant Independent gains went to Gary Johnson with 3.84 percent of the vote, Evan McMullin with 1.8 percent of the vote, and Jill Stein with 1.26 percent of the vote. These three candidates account for 5.26 percent of the swing. This election marked the first time since 1952 that the Democratic candidate performed worse in Minnesota than in the nation at large. Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by 2.1 points but won Minnesota by just 1.5 points, or 44,765 votes. Minnesota has been a primarily Democratic state in national elections since 1932. Due to Independent and Write-In gains throughout the state, Clinton was dependent on her wins in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, the two most populous counties in the state, and the Arrowhead Region in the northeastern corner of the state. Trump's votes came from less populated, rural counties. Two counties, Morrison and Todd, gave Trump over 70% of the vote, making this the first election since 1968 either major party candidate won a county with over 70%, with Trump also being the first Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower to do so since 1956. Trump was also the first Republican to receive a majority of votes in Itasca County since Herbert Hoover in 1928, the first to win Swift County since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952, and the first to win Mower County since Richard Nixon against John F. Kennedy in 1960. Due to the close margin of victory in the state, Republicans have targeted Minnesota as a potential swing state target for the 2020 United States presidential election.
