The 2016 United States presidential election in Tennessee was held on November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 General Election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Tennessee voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting the Republican nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.
On March 1, 2016, in the presidential primaries, Tennessee voters expressed their preferences for the Democratic and Republican parties' respective nominees for president. Registered members of each party only voted in their party's primary, while voters who were unaffiliated chose any one primary in which to vote.
Trump won the election in Tennessee with 60.7% of the vote. Clinton received 34.7% of the vote. This is the first time since 1972 that either party has earned over 60% of the vote in Tennessee. Tennessee was one of eleven states won by Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 but lost by Hillary Clinton.
Primary elections
Democratic primary
Hillary Clinton was challenged by Bernie Sanders, the only other major candidate remaining in the Democratic primaries. Clinton won the state, defeating Sanders by 33.6 points and earning 44 delegates while Sanders earned 23 delegates.
Republican primary
Donald Trump won the primary with a plurality, carrying 38.9% of the vote and all but one county, awarding him 33 delegates.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, came second with 24.7% of the vote and 16 delegates. Florida Senator Marco Rubio came third with 21.2% of the vote and 9 delegates, carrying only the county of Williamson. All other candidates did not receive any delegates.
General election
Voting history
Tennessee has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1996. In 2012, Republican nominee Mitt Romney won the state by a margin of more than twenty points due to the unpopularity of the Obama administration in the conservative state. Typically Democrats do very well in the urban regions of Memphis and Nashville, while Republicans dominate the rural and suburban areas. Tennessee is considered a safe Republican state. In 2016, it stayed that way, with Trump winning the state with 60.7% of the vote.
Predictions
^Highest rating given
Electoral slates
The following individuals were nominated as presidential electors:
Results
Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican
- Hardeman (largest city: Bolivar)
By congressional district
Trump won seven of nine congressional districts.
Analysis
A Southern state in the heart of the Bible Belt, no Democrat has won Tennessee's electoral votes since Bill Clinton of neighboring Arkansas, who shared the ticket with favorite son Al Gore, in 1996, nor has it been contested at the presidential level since 2000, when Gore narrowly lost his home state by less than 4 points. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win at least 40% of the state vote was Barack Obama in 2008, and Republicans have occupied all statewide offices in Tennessee since 2011.
Despite losing the state, Clinton made large gains in Williamson County, Tennessee (home to Franklin, Tennessee), the most highly-educated and wealthiest county in the state. The county is also one of the most highly-educated counties in the country, with over 60% of adult residents having a Bachelor's degree (see the map). The county remained very red, giving Trump 64% of the vote, but shifted leftward by 11%. Clinton also gained in Davidson County, Tennessee (home to Nashville, Tennessee) and Knox County, Tennessee (home to Knoxville, Tennessee).
Winning Tennessee by 652,230 votes, Donald Trump achieved his second-largest margin of victory by vote count nationwide, surpassed only by the 807,179-vote margin in Texas. Trump significantly outperformed previous Republican candidates in rural areas, particularly in Appalachia and the rural regions of Middle and West Tennessee. Notably, Trump flipped rural Hardeman County, winning it by 734 votes, marking the first time since 1988 that the county voted for a Republican in a presidential race since. This marked the first presidential election since 1972 in which a nominee garnered over 60% of Tennessee's vote.