2016 United States presidential election in Montana

2016 United States presidential election in Montana
Turnout	74.44% (of registered voters)
President before election; Barack Obama; Democratic	Elected President ; Donald Trump; Republican

The 2016 United States presidential election in Montana was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Montana 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. Montana has three electoral votes in the Electoral College.^[2]

Trump carried the state by a 20.4% margin of victory, exceeding Mitt Romney's 13.7% margin in 2012 and John McCain's 2.4% margin in 2008. Republicans have won Montana in every presidential election since 1996, and in all but one beginning in 1968. Libertarian nominee and third-party candidate Gary Johnson received 5.6% of the vote.

This was Johnson's fifth strongest state, behind his native New Mexico as well as North Dakota, Alaska, and Oklahoma.

Primary elections

Democratic primary

Two candidates appeared on the Democratic presidential primary ballot:

Montana Democratic primary, June 7, 2016
Candidate	Popular vote		Estimated delegates
Candidate	Count	Percentage	Pledged	Unpledged	Total
Bernie Sanders	65,156	51.56%	11	1	12
Hillary Clinton	55,805	44.16%	10	5	15
No preference	5,415	4.28%	0	0	0
Uncommitted	—		0	0	0
Total	126,376	100%	21	6	27
Source: The Green Papers, Montana Secretary of State - Official Primary Results

Republican primary

Republican primary results by county:

Donald Trump

60–70%
70–80%
80–90%

Five candidates appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot:

Jeb Bush (withdrawn)
Ted Cruz (withdrawn)
John Kasich (withdrawn)
Marco Rubio (withdrawn)
Donald Trump

Montana Republican primary, June 7, 2016
Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Actual delegate count
Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Bound	Unbound	Total
Donald Trump	115,594	73.68%	27	0	27
Ted Cruz (withdrawn)	14,682	9.36%	0	0	0
John Kasich (withdrawn)	10,777	6.87%	0	0	0
No preference	7,369	4.70%	0	0	0
Marco Rubio (withdrawn)	5,192	3.31%	0	0	0
Jeb Bush (withdrawn)	3,274	2.09%	0	0	0
Unprojected delegates:			0	0	0
Total:	156,888	100.00%	27	0	27
Source: The Green Papers

General election

Predictions

Source	Ranking	As of
CNN^[3]	Safe R	November 4, 2016
Cook Political Report^[4]	Safe R	November 7, 2016
Electoral-vote.com^[5]	Safe R	November 7, 2016
Rothenberg Political Report^[6]	Safe R	November 7, 2016
NBC^[7]	Lean R	November 7, 2016
RealClearPolitics^[8]	Likely R	November 7, 2016

Results

2016 United States presidential election in Montana^[9]^[10]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Republican	Donald Trump Mike Pence	279,240	56.17
	Democratic	Hillary Clinton Tim Kaine	177,709	35.75
	Libertarian	Gary Johnson Bill Weld	28,037	5.64
	Green	Jill Stein Ajamu Baraka	7,970	1.60
	Independent	Evan McMullin (write-in) Nathan Johnson (write-in)	2,297	0.46
	American Delta	Rocky De La Fuente Michael Steinberg	1,570	0.32
	Constitution	Darrell Castle (write-in) Scott Bradley (write-in)	296	0.06
	American	Tom Hoefling (write-in) Steve Schulin (write-in)	10	0.00
	Independent	Laurence Kotlikoff (write-in) Edward Leamer (write-in)	7	0.00
	Independent	Andrew Basiago (write-in) Karen Kinnison (write-in)	3	0.00
	Independent	Robert Buchanan (write-in)	2	0.00
	Independent	Joe Exotic (write-in) Douglas Terranova (write-in)	1	0.00
	Independent	Mike Smith (write-in) Daniel White (write-in)	1	0.00
	Socialist	Mimi Soltysik (write-in) Angela Nicole Walker (write-in)	1	0.00
	Libertarian	Darryl Perry (write-in)	1	0.00
	Independent	Joe Schriner (write-in)	1	0.00
	Independent	Laio Morris (write-in)	1	0.00
Total votes			497,147	100%
	Republican win

By county

County	Donald Trump Republican		Hillary Clinton Democratic		Various candidates Other parties		Margin		Total
County	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%	Total
Beaverhead	3,353	69.15%	1,143	23.57%	353	7.28%	2,210	45.58%	4,849
Big Horn	1,853	43.73%	2,094	49.42%	290	6.85%	-241	-5.69%	4,237
Blaine	1,268	47.24%	1,202	44.78%	214	7.98%	66	2.46%	2,684
Broadwater	2,348	74.94%	573	18.29%	212	6.77%	1,775	56.65%	3,133
Carbon	3,748	62.56%	1,828	30.51%	415	6.93%	1,920	32.05%	5,991
Carter	678	86.26%	70	8.91%	38	4.83%	608	77.35%	786
Cascade	19,632	56.79%	12,175	35.22%	2,764	7.99%	7,457	21.57%	34,571
Chouteau	1,679	64.50%	732	28.12%	192	7.38%	947	36.38%	2,603
Custer	3,657	70.53%	1,176	22.68%	352	6.79%	2,481	47.85%	5,185
Daniels	730	75.88%	168	17.46%	64	6.66%	562	58.42%	962
Dawson	3,320	75.30%	787	17.85%	302	6.85%	2,533	57.45%	4,409
Deer Lodge	1,763	41.92%	2,058	48.93%	385	9.15%	-295	-7.01%	4,206
Fallon	1,279	86.19%	154	10.38%	51	3.43%	1,125	75.81%	1,484
Fergus	4,269	73.10%	1,202	20.58%	369	6.32%	3,067	52.52%	5,840
Flathead	30,240	63.67%	13,293	27.99%	3,963	8.34%	16,947	35.68%	47,496
Gallatin	23,802	44.23%	24,246	45.05%	5,771	10.72%	-444	-0.82%	53,819
Garfield	653	90.95%	34	4.74%	31	4.31%	619	86.21%	718
Glacier	1,620	31.92%	3,121	61.50%	334	6.58%	-1,501	-29.58%	5,075
Golden Valley	365	77.00%	71	14.98%	38	8.02%	294	62.02%	474
Granite	1,192	67.08%	472	26.56%	113	6.36%	720	40.52%	1,777
Hill	3,478	53.96%	2,371	36.79%	596	9.25%	1,107	17.17%	6,445
Jefferson	4,177	62.21%	1,998	29.76%	539	8.03%	2,179	32.45%	6,714
Judith Basin	872	72.19%	235	19.45%	101	8.36%	637	52.74%	1,208
Lake	7,530	57.13%	4,776	36.23%	875	6.64%	2,754	20.90%	13,181
Lewis and Clark	16,895	47.87%	14,478	41.02%	3,923	11.11%	2,417	6.85%	35,296
Liberty	698	72.63%	206	21.44%	57	5.93%	492	51.19%	961
Lincoln	6,729	72.12%	2,041	21.88%	560	6.00%	4,688	50.24%	9,330
Madison	3,297	69.51%	1,180	24.88%	266	5.61%	2,117	44.63%	4,743
McCone	862	78.72%	154	14.06%	79	7.22%	708	64.66%	1,095
Meagher	729	74.62%	193	19.75%	55	5.63%	536	54.87%	977
Mineral	1,330	66.10%	519	25.80%	163	8.10%	811	40.30%	2,012
Missoula	22,250	36.64%	31,543	51.95%	6,929	11.41%	-9,293	-15.31%	60,722
Musselshell	1,967	80.58%	332	13.60%	142	5.82%	1,635	66.98%	2,441
Park	4,980	53.21%	3,595	38.41%	784	8.38%	1,385	14.80%	9,359
Petroleum	278	86.34%	30	9.32%	14	4.34%	248	77.02%	322
Phillips	1,723	79.36%	318	14.65%	130	5.99%	1,405	64.71%	2,171
Pondera	1,799	66.07%	738	27.10%	186	6.83%	1,061	38.97%	2,723
Powder River	884	83.95%	127	12.06%	42	3.99%	757	71.89%	1,053
Powell	2,029	72.62%	551	19.72%	214	7.66%	1,478	52.90%	2,794
Prairie	556	80.70%	100	14.51%	33	4.79%	456	66.19%	689
Ravalli	14,810	65.66%	6,223	27.59%	1,523	6.75%	8,587	38.07%	22,556
Richland	3,908	80.23%	671	13.78%	292	5.99%	3,237	66.45%	4,871
Roosevelt	1,797	49.21%	1,560	42.72%	295	8.07%	237	6.49%	3,652
Rosebud	2,253	65.25%	987	28.58%	213	6.17%	1,266	36.67%	3,453
Sanders	4,286	72.00%	1,218	20.46%	449	7.54%	3,068	51.54%	5,953
Sheridan	1,241	67.63%	477	25.99%	117	6.38%	764	41.64%	1,835
Silver Bow	6,376	38.76%	8,619	52.39%	1,457	8.85%	-2,243	-13.63%	16,452
Stillwater	3,661	75.13%	908	18.63%	304	6.24%	2,753	56.50%	4,873
Sweet Grass	1,595	75.70%	402	19.08%	110	5.22%	1,193	56.62%	2,107
Teton	2,170	68.07%	808	25.35%	210	6.58%	1,362	42.72%	3,188
Toole	1,497	73.49%	402	19.73%	138	6.78%	1,095	53.76%	2,037
Treasure	351	79.23%	59	13.32%	33	7.45%	292	65.91%	443
Valley	2,698	69.29%	886	22.75%	310	7.96%	1,812	46.54%	3,894
Wheatland	702	74.21%	179	18.92%	65	6.87%	523	55.29%	946
Wibaux	463	85.58%	55	10.17%	23	4.25%	408	75.41%	541
Yellowstone	40,920	58.05%	22,171	31.45%	7,395	10.50%	18,749	26.60%	70,486
Totals	279,240	55.65%	177,709	35.41%	44,873	8.94%	101,531	20.24%	501,822

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

Blaine (largest city: Chinook)
Hill (largest city: Havre)
Roosevelt (largest city: Wolf Point)

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

Gallatin (largest city: Bozeman)

By congressional district

Due to the state's low population, only one congressional district is allocated, the At-Large District. This district covers the entire state, and thus is equivalent to the statewide election results.

District	Trump	Clinton	Representative
At-large	56.17%	35.25%	Ryan Zinke

Analysis

Like every Republican nominee since 1996, Donald Trump carried Montana's three electoral votes. He won by a large margin, and he swept most of the plains counties in eastern Montana, traditionally the most conservative part of the state, by staggering margins sometimes exceeding 60 points. The eastern part of the state has benefited from the recent energy boom in neighboring North Dakota, and its populace is suspicious and disapproving of the environmental movement championed by Democrats in recent elections.

Most counties in the western part of the state were also traditionally Republican, with a ranching-based economy heavily dependent on the raising and production of cattle and hay, particularly in the counties bordering Idaho such as Beaverhead County and Ravalli County. However, an influx of retirees from the West Coast have made the western region more competitive in recent elections.^[11]

The only significant counties won by Clinton were Missoula County, where the city of Missoula is located, Gallatin County, where Bozeman is located, and Big Horn County and Glacier County, which are both majority Native American. While sweeping most of the rural, majority white conservative counties of the state, Trump also won in Lewis and Clark County where the capital city of Helena is located, in neighboring Cascade County where Great Falls is located, and in Yellowstone County where the city of Billings is located.^[12]

Trump became the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Gallatin County since William McKinley in 1900.

References

^ "Montana Voter Turnout". Montana SoS. Retrieved February 7, 2024.
^ "Distribution of Electoral Votes". National Archives and Records Administration. September 19, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
^ Chalian, David (November 4, 2016). "Road to 270: CNN's new election map". CNN. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
^ "2016 Electoral Scorecard". The Cook Political Report. November 7, 2016. Archived from the original on February 7, 2019. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
^ "2016 Predicted Electoral Map". Electoral-vote.com. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
^ "Presidential Ratings". The Rothenberg Political Report. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
^ Todd, Chuck (November 7, 2016). "NBC's final battleground map shows a lead for Clinton". NBC News. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
^ "2016 Election Maps - Battle for White House". RealClearPolitics. Retrieved February 17, 2019.
^ Federal Election Commission (December 2017). "Federal Elections 2016" (PDF). p. 35. Retrieved November 13, 2021.
^ Montana Secretary of State. "2016 General Election Official State-Filed Write-In Candidates" (PDF). Retrieved November 14, 2021.
^ Cohen, Micah (June 21, 2012). "Presidential Geography: Montana". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved November 26, 2016.
^ "Montana Election Results 2016". The New York Times. Retrieved November 26, 2016.

External links

RNC 2016 Republican Nominating Process Archived 2016-11-08 at the Wayback Machine
Green papers for 2016 primaries, caucuses, and conventions

[1] "Montana Voter Turnout". Montana SoS. Retrieved February 7, 2024.

[2] "Distribution of Electoral Votes". National Archives and Records Administration. September 19, 2019. Retrieved November 29, 2020.

[3] Chalian, David (November 4, 2016). "Road to 270: CNN's new election map". CNN. Retrieved February 17, 2019.

[4] "2016 Electoral Scorecard". The Cook Political Report. November 7, 2016. Archived from the original on February 7, 2019. Retrieved February 17, 2019.

[5] "2016 Predicted Electoral Map". Electoral-vote.com. Retrieved February 17, 2019.

[6] "Presidential Ratings". The Rothenberg Political Report. Retrieved August 16, 2021.

[7] Todd, Chuck (November 7, 2016). "NBC's final battleground map shows a lead for Clinton". NBC News. Retrieved February 17, 2019.

[8] "2016 Election Maps - Battle for White House". RealClearPolitics. Retrieved February 17, 2019.

[9] Federal Election Commission (December 2017). "Federal Elections 2016" (PDF). p. 35. Retrieved November 13, 2021.

[10] Montana Secretary of State. "2016 General Election Official State-Filed Write-In Candidates" (PDF). Retrieved November 14, 2021.

[11] Cohen, Micah (June 21, 2012). "Presidential Geography: Montana". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved November 26, 2016.

[12] "Montana Election Results 2016". The New York Times. Retrieved November 26, 2016.

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