The 2016 United States presidential election in California 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. California 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. California had 55 electoral votes in the Electoral College, the most of any state.
Clinton won the state with 61.73 percent of the vote, a 30.11 percent margin, and a vote difference of 4,269,978. Despite being the largest state by population in the country, California only delivered Trump his third largest vote count, behind Florida and Texas. Even though Clinton lost the presidency, her victory margin in California was the largest of any Democrat since 1936. This was only the fourth time in U.S. history that a Republican was elected president without carrying California. She also was the first Democrat to win Orange County since that same year, making Trump the first ever Republican to win the presidency without winning the county. Trump's 31.62% vote share remains the worst performance by a Republican presidential nominee since 1856. The state was one of 11 (along with the District of Columbia) that shifted towards Clinton and Kaine from the 2012 campaign of Obama and Biden.
The 2016 election marked the first time since 1940 in California that a presidential candidate appeared as a candidate for more than one party as Donald Trump was nominated not only by the Republican Party but the American Independent Party as well.
Primary elections
On June 7, 2016, in the presidential primaries, California voters expressed their preferences for the Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, and American Independent parties' respective nominees for president.
While California has had a top-two candidates open primary system since 2011, presidential primaries are still partisan races. Registered members of each party may only vote in their party's presidential primary. Unaffiliated voters may choose any one primary in which to vote, if the party allows such voters to participate. For 2016, the American Independent, Democratic, and Libertarian parties have chosen to allow voters registered with no party preference to request their respective party's presidential ballots.
Democratic primary
Seven candidates appeared on the Democratic presidential primary ballot:
- Hillary Clinton
- Bernie Sanders
- Rocky De La Fuente
- Henry Hewes
- Keith Judd
- Michael Steinberg
- Willie L. Wilson
Republican primary
Five candidates appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot, four of whom had suspended their campaigns prior to the primary:
- Donald Trump
- Ben Carson (withdrawn)
- Ted Cruz (withdrawn)
- John Kasich (withdrawn)
- Jim Gilmore (withdrawn)
Donald Trump, the only candidate with an active campaign, won each Congressional district by substantial margins, as well as all the statewide delegates, to capture all 172 votes.
Libertarian primary
Twelve candidates appeared on the Libertarian presidential primary ballot:
- Marc Feldman
- John Hale
- Cecil Ince
- Gary Johnson
- Steve Kerbel
- John McAfee
- Darryl Perry
- Austin Petersen
- Derrick M. Reid
- Jack Robinson Jr.
- Rhett Smith
- Joy Waymire
The primary took place after Gary Johnson won the Libertarian nomination at the Party's 2016 convention.
Other parties
American Independent
The American Independent Party, a far-right and paleoconservative political party that formed when endorsing the candidacy of George Wallace in 1968 held a small presidential primary on June 7. It was won by attorney Alan Spears.
The American Independent Party nullified the results of this primary when they endorsed Donald Trump in August. The party indicated that Trump was a popular write-in choice during the primary, but was not allowed on the ballot because there was no evidence that Trump wanted the American Independent endorsement.
General election
Polling
Democrat Hillary Clinton won every pre-election poll by double digits. The average of the last three pre-election polls showed Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump 54.3% to 32%.
Results
Below is an official list of California's Recognized Write-in Candidates.
- Laurence Kotlikoff for president and Edward Leamer for vice president
- Mike Maturen for president and Juan Muñoz for vice president
- Evan McMullin for president and Nathan Johnson for vice president
- Bernie Sanders for president and Tulsi Gabbard for vice president
- Jerry White for president and Niles Niemuth for vice president
California law only requires that 55 electors sign on to declare a person a write-in candidate, not that the persons consent, according to a statement from the Secretary of State's Office.
By county
Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic
- Nevada (largest town: Truckee)
- Orange (largest city: Anaheim)
By congressional district
Clinton won 46 of the 53 congressional districts, including seven held by Republicans.
By city
Official winners by city
Analysis
California has voted Democratic in every presidential election since Republican George H. W. Bush won the state in 1988. Clinton easily continued the Democratic tradition in California, winning the state with 61.7% of the vote, Clinton's second highest vote percentage of any state, behind Hawaii. Donald Trump received 31.6% of the vote, making for a Democratic victory margin of 30.11 points. California was one of eleven states that shifted leftward from 2012 and contributed to Clinton's national popular vote victory.
The California state result was historically one of the most successful for the Democratic Party nominee by several measures, as Hillary Clinton carried California by the largest margin of any Democratic candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt swept the state by 35.25% in his 1936 re-election landslide. Trump's 31.62% vote share in the state was the lowest for a major-party candidate in the state since John W. Davis's 8.2% in 1924. Trump became only the second nominee of either party to win the presidency without receiving at least a million votes in Los Angeles County, by far the nation's largest, since the county had first given any nominee over a million votes in 1952 (George W. Bush in 2000 having been the first). Overall, the state shifted left by nearly 7%, representing the second-strongest such shift in 2016, behind only Utah, which saw a significant third-party performance.
California was the only large state (one with at least 15 electoral votes) in which Hillary Clinton lost no counties that had been carried by Barack Obama in 2012. Indeed, she herself flipped Orange County, the largest county to switch parties in either direction in 2016, into the Democratic column; no Democrat had carried Orange County since 1936, when Franklin Roosevelt carried every county in the state. This was because California is one of the most highly-educated states in the country, with Clinton making large gains in the state's most educated counties, including Orange County.
This made Donald Trump the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Orange County since the county's founding in 1889; he also became the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Ventura County since its founding in 1872, without carrying Riverside County since its founding in 1893, without carrying San Bernardino County since Ulysses Grant in 1868, without carrying Nevada, San Diego, or San Joaquin Counties since William McKinley in 1896, without carrying San Luis Obispo County since William McKinley in 1900, and without carrying Fresno, Merced, or Stanislaus Counties since Richard Nixon in 1968.