The 2016 United States presidential election in Georgia 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. Georgia 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 the Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Georgia has 16 electoral votes in the Electoral College.
Trump won Georgia by 5.13%, a smaller margin than Mitt Romney's 7.82% in 2012 and even John McCain's 5.20% in 2008. Clinton received 45.3% of the vote, making this one of the few states where she outperformed Barack Obama in 2012. Trump's reduced margin of victory made Georgia one of eleven states (plus the District of Columbia) to vote more Democratic in 2016 than in 2012. This trend would continue into 2020, when Trump became the first Republican to lose Georgia since George H. W. Bush in 1992, though he won it back in 2024 by a 2.2% margin.
2016 was the last presidential election in which Georgia voted to the right of any of its neighboring states (Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina), particularly Florida and North Carolina. As of the 2024 presidential race, 2016 is the last time that Burke County voted Democratic, and the last time the Democratic presidential nominee won the nationwide popular vote without winning Georgia.
Primary elections
Georgia held its presidential primaries on March 1, 2016.
Democratic primary
Four candidates appeared on the ballot:
- Hillary Clinton
- Martin O'Malley (withdrew)
- Bernie Sanders
- Michael Steinberg
Republican primary
The 76 Republican delegates from Georgia were allocated in this way. There were 42 delegates allocated by congressional district; if a candidate received a majority of votes or they were the only candidate to receive at least 20% of the vote in a congressional district, they would receive the district's three delegates. If not, the candidate who won the plurality of the vote in a congressional district would receive two delegates, and the second-place finisher in the district would receive one delegate. There were also 34 at-large delegates; if a candidate got a majority of the vote or they were the only candidate to get the mandatory threshold to receive any delegates (begins at 20%, if no one gets at least 20%, then 15%, if no one gets 15%, then 10%), they would get all of the state's at-large delegates. If not, the delegates would be allocated proportionally among the candidates receiving at least the mandatory threshold.
Green convention
On June 4, the Georgia Green Party held its state convention and presidential preference vote.
General election
Polling
Throughout the campaign, Republican Donald Trump won the vast majority of pre-election polls. The average of the last three polls showed Trump leading Hillary Clinton 50% to 46%, which was accurate compared to the results.
Results
The voting age population was 7,168,068, of which 5,443,046, were registered to vote. Turnout for the presidential election was 4,146,825, which is 57.85% of the voting age population and 76.19% of registered voters.
Seventeen candidates received write-in votes, of which the large plurality (13,017) went to Evan McMullin.
By county
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican
- Baker (largest city: Newton)
- Dooly (largest city: Vienna)
- Early (largest city: Blakely)
- Peach (largest city: Fort Valley)
- Quitman (largest city: Georgetown)
- Twiggs (largest city: Jeffersonville)
Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic
- Cobb (largest city: Marietta)
- Gwinnett (largest city: Peachtree Corners)
- Henry (largest city: Stockbridge)
By congressional district
Trump won ten of 14 congressional districts.
Analysis
The fast-growing and increasingly diverse Atlanta metropolitan area in particular shifted strongly towards the Democratic Party, with Clinton becoming the first Democrat to win Henry County since Georgia native Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Cobb and Gwinnett counties since 1976 (when Carter won every county in the state).
The leftward shift in urban Georgia between 2012 and 2016 foreshadowed Georgia's transition from a Republican stronghold into a competitive (albeit slightly red-leaning) swing state. In contrast to white working class voters shifting rightward in much of the country, in Georgia white college-educated voters in the Metro Atlanta shifted leftward (see the map).
Trump thus became the first Republican to win the White House without carrying Cobb County since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, as well as the first to do so without carrying Douglas, Gwinnett or Rockdale counties since Richard Nixon in 1968, and the first to do so without carrying Henry, Newton, Baldwin, or Sumter counties (the latter two being in the Black Belt) since Ronald Reagan in 1980.
As of 2024, this is the most recent presidential election in which Georgia was not seriously contested, as well as the last in which the Democratic candidate won Burke County, a Black Belt county and Augusta suburb that was formerly predominantly-Black but has seen a decline in said demographic.
Georgia weighed in for this election as 7.23% more Republican than the national average, despite the fact that it had voted to the right of the nation by at least 10 points from 1996 to 2012.