2016 United States presidential election in Arizona explained

See main article: 2016 United States presidential election.

Election Name:2016 United States presidential election in Arizona
Country:Arizona
Type:presidential
Ongoing:no
Previous Election:2012 United States presidential election in Arizona
Previous Year:2012
Election Date:November 8, 2016
Next Election:2020 United States presidential election in Arizona
Next Year:2020
Turnout:74.2%
Image1:File:Donald Trump official portrait (3x4a).jpg
Nominee1:Donald Trump
Party1:Republican Party (United States)
Home State1:New York
Running Mate1:Mike Pence
Electoral Vote1:11
Popular Vote1:1,252,401
Percentage1:
Nominee2:Hillary Clinton
Party2:Democratic Party (United States)
Home State2:New York
Running Mate2:Tim Kaine
Electoral Vote2:0
Popular Vote2:1,161,167
President
Before Election:Barack Obama
Before Party:Democratic Party (United States)
After Election:Donald Trump
After Party:Republican Party (United States)

The 2016 United States presidential election in Arizona was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential elections in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Arizona voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Arizona has 11 electoral votes in the Electoral College.[1]

Despite the country at-large swinging to the right, Arizona's Republican margin of victory decreased from 9.0% in 2012[2] to only 3.5% in 2016, thus making it one of 11 states (along with the District of Columbia) to swing toward the Democratic Party in this election. Trump's margin of victory in Arizona was the smallest for any Republican who won the presidency since Arizona's founding in 1912, with Calvin Coolidge's 5.8% victory in 1924 being the second closest.

Notably, Maricopa County, the state's most populous county, went more Democratic than the state as a whole for the first time in state history. The county had not voted for a Democrat since Harry S. Truman in 1948. Therefore, Trump's narrow win in the county suggested the Republican Party was losing ground in the state. In fact, the county and the state would go on to vote Democratic in 2020.

Primary elections

See main article: 2016 Arizona presidential primary.

Democratic primary

See main article: 2016 Arizona Democratic primary. Six candidates appeared on the Democratic presidential primary ballot:[3]

Results

See also: Results of the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries.

Detailed results per congressional district

+ Detailed results for the Arizona Democratic primary, April 5, 2016[4] [5]
DistrictTotalHillary ClintonBernie Sanders
VotesDelegatesVotes%DelegatesVotes%Delegates
1st district63,863635,44555.5%326,26741.1%3
2nd district78,237842,79754.7%433,89143.3%4
3rd district51,520530,29858.8%320,09139.0%2
4th district37,273415,28955.4%220,66241.0%2
5th district40,847522,97356.2%316,98241.6%2
6th district50,465629,26658.0%420,25940.1%2
7th district42,199524,24557.5%317,17340.7%2
8th district46,491527,67259.5%317,65138.0%2
9th district55,340629,10152.6%325,35945.8%3
At-large delegates466,23516262,45956.3%9192,96241.4%7
Pledged PLEOs466,2359262,45956.3%5192,96241.4%4
Total466,23575262,46456.3%42192,96541.4%33

Republican primary

See main article: 2016 Arizona Republican primary. Fourteen candidates appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot:[6]

Green primary

The Arizona Green Party held its primary on March 22. Jill Stein won with 82% of the vote, and the overall number of voters that took place in the primary saw an increase from 561 in 2012 to 770 in 2016.[7] Only two candidates qualified for the primary:[8]

Arizona Green Party presidential primary, March 22, 2016[9]
CandidateVotesPercentageNational delegates
Jill Stein66682%5
Kent Mesplay15118%1
Write-in/Blank180%-
Total817100.0%6

General election

Polling

The first poll conducted in March 2016 showed a tie between Clinton and Trump. From March 2016 to October, the polling in this normally Republican state was quite close, with neither candidate seriously leading. In late October, Trump gained momentum and won every pre-election poll in the weeks leading up to the election. The final poll showed Trump leading Clinton 46% to 41% and the average of the final 3 polls showed Trump leading 47% to 43%, which was accurate compared to the results.[10]

Predictions

The following are final 2016 predictions from various organizations for Arizona as of Election Day.

SourceRankingAs of
Los Angeles Times[11] November 6, 2016
align=left Rothenberg Political Report[12] November 7, 2016
Sabato's Crystal Ball[13] November 7, 2016
CNN[14] November 8, 2016
NBC[15] November 8, 2016
RealClearPolitics[16] November 8, 2016
Fox News[17] November 7, 2016
ABC[18] November 7, 2016

Results by county

CountyDonald Trump
Republican
Hillary Clinton
Democratic
Various candidates
Other parties
MarginTotal
%%%%
Apache8,24029.79%17,08361.76%2,3388.45%-8,843-31.97%27,661
Cochise28,09256.17%17,45034.89%4,4738.94%10,64221.28%50,015
Coconino21,10835.31%32,40454.20%6,27210.49%-11,296-18.89%59,784
Gila14,18262.99%7,00331.10%1,3305.91%7,17931.89%22,515
Graham8,02565.34%3,30126.88%9557.78%4,72438.46%12,281
Greenlee1,89257.33%1,09233.09%3169.58%80024.24%3,300
La Paz4,00367.27%1,57526.47%3736.27%2,42840.80%5,951
Maricopa747,36147.67%702,90744.83%117,5667.50%44,4542.84%1,567,834
Mohave58,28272.90%17,45521.83%4,2065.26%40,82751.07%79,943
Navajo20,57751.07%16,45940.85%3,2588.09%4,11810.22%40,294
Pima167,42839.71%224,66153.28%29,5517.01%-57,233-13.57%421,640
Pinal72,81956.21%47,89236.97%8,8356.82%24,92719.24%129,546
Santa Cruz3,89723.71%11,69071.14%8465.15%-7,793-47.43%16,433
Yavapai71,33062.32%35,59031.10%7,5306.58%35,74031.22%114,450
Yuma25,16547.47%24,60546.42%3,2406.11%5601.05%53,010
Totals1,252,40148.08%1,161,16744.58%191,0897.34%91,2343.50%2,604,657

By congressional district

Trump won 5 of 9 congressional districts. Both candidates won a district held by the other party.[19]

DistrictTrumpClintonRepresentative
47.7%46.6%Ann Kirkpatrick
Tom O'Halleran
44.7%49.6%Martha McSally
32.5%62.4%Raúl Grijalva
67.7%27.5%Paul Gosar
57.6%36.5%Matt Salmon
Andy Biggs
52.4%42.4%David Schweikert
22.6%71.8%Ruben Gallego
58.1%37.0%Trent Franks
38.4%54.7%Kyrsten Sinema

Turnout

Voter Turnout was 74.2% with 2,661,497 ballots cast out of 3,588,466 voters.[20]

Analysis

Donald Trump won Arizona with a margin of 3.5%, a reduced margin from Mitt Romney's 9.0% margin in 2012.[21] Arizona was among the eleven states in which Hillary Clinton outperformed Barack Obama's margin in 2012,[22] primarily due to an increase in Hispanic voter turnout in southern Arizona, including heavily populated Maricopa County. This was the weakest performance for a Republican in the state since 1992. Trump also lost the 2nd congressional district that Romney had won four years earlier.

Maricopa County in particular went from a 10.7% margin of victory for Romney in 2012 to a 2.8% margin of victory for Trump, making this only one of three times that a Democrat held the county's margins to single digits since 1952. Indeed, the only other times were 1964 and 1996. Clinton also came the closest of any Democrat to winning Yuma County since La Paz County broke off from it in the 1980s, as the county was last carried by a Democrat in 1964.

Other rural counties that Bill Clinton had won in the 1990s continued to trend in a Republican direction, namely the formerly union-heavy Gila, Graham, and Greenlee counties. In terms of percentage of the vote, Trump's strongest support was in the northwest of the state, including Mohave County, which was the only county to give him over 70% of the vote. Clinton did best in the southern-central region along the US-Mexico border. Santa Cruz and Pima counties (home to Tucson) were among her strongest and among the places in the state where she outperformed Barack Obama in 2012.

Electors

Arizona had 11 electors in 2016. All of them voted for Donald Trump for president and Mike Pence for vice president.

The electors were

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Distribution of Electoral Votes. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20190109144218/https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/allocation.html. January 9, 2019. November 23, 2020. National Archives and Records Administration.
  2. Web site: Hobbs . Katie . Arizona Secretary of State 2012 Election Information . 2020-11-06 . Arizona Secretary of State.
  3. Web site: Democratic Party Candidates – Presidential Preference Election 2016 . . azsos.gov . . September 15, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160909004413/http://www.azsos.gov/elections/voting-election/election-information/prespref2016dem . September 9, 2016 . dead .
  4. Web site: Arizona Democratic Delegation 2016. www.thegreenpapers.com.
  5. Web site: 2016 Arizona District-Level Delegate Math . . April 5, 2016 . April 8, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160418091112/http://www.azdem.org/sites/azdems/files/PDFs/Updated%202016%20DISTRICT%20Delegate%20Selection%20Allocation%20Math.pdf . April 18, 2016 . dead . mdy-all .
  6. Web site: Republican Party Candidates – Presidential Preference Election 2016 | Arizona Secretary of State . Azsos.gov . March 7, 2015 . December 1, 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161203014833/https://www.azsos.gov/elections/voting-election/election-information/prespref2016rep . December 3, 2016 . dead .
  7. Web site: Arizona Green Party Presidential Primary Results. Ballot Access News . March 23, 2016. March 23, 2016.
  8. Web site: Two Candidates Qualify for Arizona Green Party Presidential Primary; Six Qualify for Democratic Primary. Ballot Access News . December 14, 2015. February 20, 2016.
  9. Web site: Unofficial 2016 Presidential Preference Election Results. azsos.gov. March 23, 2016.
  10. Web site: RealClearPolitics – Election 2016 – Arizona: Trump vs. Clinton. www.realclearpolitics.com.
  11. News: Our final map has Clinton winning with 352 electoral votes. Compare your picks with ours.. 2016-11-06. Los Angeles Times. 2016-11-13.
  12. Web site: Presidential Ratings . The Rothenberg Political Report . August 16, 2021.
  13. Web site: Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » 2016 President. 2016-11-07. Centerforpolitics.org. 2016-11-13.
  14. Web site: Road to 270: CNN's general election map – CNNPolitics.com. 2016-11-08. Cnn.com. 2016-11-13.
  15. Web site: NBC's Final Battleground Map Shows Clinton With a Significant Lead. Todd. Chuck. NBC News. 2016-11-13.
  16. Web site: 2016 Election Maps – Battle for White House. RealClearPolitics. 2016-11-13.
  17. Web site: Electoral Scorecard: Map shifts again in Trump's favor, as Clinton holds edge. 2016-11-07. Fox News. 2016-11-13.
  18. Web site: The Final 15: The Latest Polls in the Swing States That Will Decide the Election. 2016-11-07. Abcnews.go.com. 2016-11-13.
  19. Web site: Introducing the 2017 Cook Political Report Partisan Voter Index. The Cook Political Report.
  20. Web site: Arizona Secretary of State Election Night Reporting . Results.arizona.vote . November 20, 2016.
  21. News: Arizona Election Results 2016 . The New York Times. November 10, 2016.
  22. Web site: Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections – County Data.