2016 United States presidential election in Vermont

The 2016 United States presidential election in Vermont was held on November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Vermont voters chose three 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. Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders received unsolicited write-in votes.

2016 United States presidential election in Vermont

November 8, 2016
Turnout	67.95%
Nominee Hillary Clinton Donald Trump Bernie Sanders (write-in) Party Democratic Republican Independent Home state New York New York Vermont Running mate Tim Kaine Mike Pence none Electoral vote 3 0 0 Popular vote 178,573 95,369 18,218 Percentage 55.72% 29.76% 5.68%
County Results Clinton   40–50%   50–60%   60–70% Trump   50–60%
President before election Barack Obama Democratic Elected President Donald Trump Republican

Treemap of the popular vote by county.

Hillary Clinton easily won Vermont, regarded as one of the most progressive states in the country, with 55.7% of the vote,[1] a vote margin of 25.9% compared with the President Barack Obama's 35.6% vote margin in 2012.[2] Donald Trump received 29.8% of the vote and won Essex County—the most rural and sparsely populated county in the state—thus making him the first Republican presidential candidate to win a county in Vermont since George W. Bush in 2004.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders received 5.7% of the vote through write-ins, the highest write-in draft campaign percentage for a statewide presidential candidate in history.[3] Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, received 3.1%, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein received 2.1%.[4]

Vermont had once been the quintessential "Yankee Republican" state. From 1856 to 1988, it voted Republican in every election except Lyndon Johnson's 44-state landslide in 1964. However, it swung hard to Bill Clinton in 1992, and the Democrats have carried it without serious difficulty since then. Trump and George W. Bush are the only Republicans to win the White House without carrying Vermont.

Primary elections

On March 1, 2016, in the presidential primaries, Vermont voters expressed their preferences for the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian parties. Voters who were unaffiliated chose any 1 primary in which to vote.

Democratic primary

The 2016 Vermont Democratic primary took place on March 1 as one of the Democratic Party's primaries ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

On the same day, dubbed "Super Tuesday," Democratic primaries were held in 10 other states plus American Samoa, while the Republican Party held primaries in 11 states including their own Vermont primary.

As Sanders was an extremely popular favorite son, there was no campaign to speak of and all pledged delegates were given to Sanders, due to Clinton getting less than 15% of the popular vote. Sanders won every municipality in the state.

Results

Democratic primary results by county.

  Bernie Sanders

Vermont Democratic primary, March 1, 2016
Candidate	Popular vote		Estimated delegates
	Count	Percentage	Pledged	Unpledged	Total
Bernie Sanders	115,900	85.69%	16	6	22
Hillary Clinton	18,338	13.56%	0	4	4
Martin O'Malley (withdrawn)	282	0.21%
Roque "Rocky" De La Fuente	80	0.06%
Total blank votes	260	0.19%
Total write-ins	238	0.18%
Total spoiled votes	158	0.12%
Uncommitted	N/A		0	0	0
Total	135,256	100%	16	10	26
Source: The Green Papers, Vermont Secretary of State

Republican primary

Vermont Republican primary, March 1, 2016
Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Actual delegate count
			Bound	Unbound	Total
Donald Trump	19,974	32.34%	8	0	8
John Kasich	18,534	30.01%	8	0	8
Marco Rubio	11,781	19.08%	0	0	0
Ted Cruz	5,932	9.61%	0	0	0
Ben Carson	2,551	4.13%	0	0	0
Jeb Bush (withdrawn)	1,106	1.79%	0	0	0
Rand Paul (withdrawn)	423	0.68%	0	0	0
Chris Christie (withdrawn)	361	0.58%	0	0	0
Carly Fiorina (withdrawn)	212	0.34%	0	0	0
Rick Santorum (withdrawn)	164	0.27%	0	0	0
Unprojected delegates:			0	0	0
Total:	61,756	100.00%	16	0	16
Source: The Green Papers

General election

With the heavy Democratic and Progressive presence in the state, the state was bypassed by the candidates during the General.

Predictions

Source	Ranking	As of
Los Angeles Times[5]	Safe D	November 6, 2016
CNN[6]	Safe D	November 4, 2016
Cook Political Report[7]	Safe D	November 7, 2016
Electoral-vote.com[8]	Safe D	November 8, 2016
Sabato's Crystal Ball[9]	Safe D	November 7, 2016
Fox News[10]	Safe D	November 7, 2016

Polling

Hillary Clinton won every poll pre-election by double digits. Interestingly, she only reached 50% in the last poll, leading 50% to 22%, which may indicate support for writing in Bernie Sanders or other third party candidates. The average of the final three polls showed Hillary Clinton leading Trump 48% to 22%. [11]

Results

2016 United States presidential election in Vermont[12][13]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Hillary Clinton	178,573	55.72%
	Republican	Donald Trump	95,369	29.76%
	Independent	Bernie Sanders (write-in)	18,218	5.68%
	Libertarian	Gary Johnson	10,078	3.14%
	Green	Jill Stein	6,758	2.11%
	Reform	Rocky De La Fuente	1,063	0.33%
	Republican	John Kasich (write-in)	831	0.26%
	Independent	Evan McMullin (write-in)	641	0.20%
	Liberty Union	Gloria La Riva	327	0.10%
	Constitution	Darrell Castle (write-in)	63	0.02%
	Socialist	Mimi Soltysik (write-in)	3	<0.01%
	Write-in	Other Write-in	3,143	1.00%
	n/a	No Name/None of the Above	257	0.09%
	n/a	Spoiled/blank	5,400	1.69%
Total votes			320,467	100.00%
	Democratic win

Extended content
	Other Write-ins	Candidate	Votes	Percentage
	Republican	Mike Pence (write-in)	305	0.09%
	Republican	Paul Ryan (write-in)	209	0.06%
	Republican	Mitt Romney (write-in)	122	0.04%
	Republican	Marco Rubio (write-in)	93	0.03%
	Republican	Jeb Bush (write-in)	79	0.03%
	Republican	John McCain (write-in)	76	0.03%
	Republican	Ted Cruz (write-in)	63	0.02%
	Libertarian	Ron Paul (write-in)	25	0.02%
	Republican	Colin Powell (write-in)	25	0.02%
	Democratic	Martin O'Malley (write-in)	6	<0.01%
	n/a	Write-in (Other)	2,140	0.72%

Results by county

County	Clinton	Votes	Trump	Votes	Third-Parties / Others	Votes	Johnson	Votes	Stein	Votes	Others	Votes	Total
	Democrat		Republican				Libertarian		Green
Addison	59.0%	11,219	27.8%	5,297	13.2%	2,515	3.4%	639	1.9%	361	8.0%	1,515	19,031
Bennington	54.9%	9,539	34.1%	5,925	11.0%	1,917	2.75%	478	1.84%	318	6.4%	1,121	17,381
Caledonia	45.8%	6,445	39.3%	5,534	14.9%	2,095	4.1%	578	2.4%	333	8.4%	1,184	14,074
Chittenden	65.7%	54,814	22.3%	18,601	12.0%	10,001	3.0%	2,469	2.2	1,796	6.9%	5,736	83,416
Essex	34.8%	1,019	51.5%	1,506	13.7%	400	4.1%	121	1.8%	43	8.1%	236	2,925
Franklin	43.7%	9,351	40.9%	8,752	15.5%	3,308	3.9%	836	1.5%	320	10.1%	2,152	21,411
Grand Isle	51.0%	2,094	36.2%	1,487	12.9%	528	3.2%	131	1.2%	50	8.4%	345	4,109
Lamoille	56.7%	7,241	28.0%	3,570	15.3%	1,951	3.6%	457	2.6%	326	9.2%	1,168	12,762
Orange	51.5%	7,541	34.2%	5,007	14.3%	2,101	3.5%	513	2.4%	350	8.5%	1,238	14,649
Orleans	43.0%	5,185	42.8%	5,159	14.1%	1,702	3.3%	398	1.6%	194	9.2%	1,110	12,046
Rutland	46.0%	13,635	42.1%	12,479	11.8%	3,501	3.2%	946	1.6%	467	7.1%	2,088	29,615
Washington	59.8%	18,594	25.7%	7,993	14.5%	4,499	3.2%	999	2.9%	911	9.3%	2,589	31,086
Windham	63.4%	14,340	24.1%	5,454	12.6%	2,840	2.6%	582	3.0%	677	7.0%	1,581	22,634
Windsor	58.7%	17,556	28.8%	8,605	12.6%	3,767	3.1%	931	2.0%	612	7.9%	2,224	29,928

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Essex (largest town: Lunenburg) [14]

See also

• United States presidential elections in Vermont
• 2016 Democratic Party presidential debates and forums
• 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries
• 2016 Republican Party presidential debates and forums
• 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries

References

1. "2016 Presidential General Election Results - Vermont".
2. Editors (August 1, 2017). "Vermont Election Results 2016". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-01-11.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
3. Weigel, David (November 17, 2016). "More than 18,000 Vermonters wrote in Bernie Sanders for president". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-01-11.
4. "Vermont Election Night Results". sec state vt us/. Retrieved 2016-11-12.
5. "Our final map has Clinton winning with 352 electoral votes. Compare your picks with ours". Los Angeles Times. 2016-11-06. Retrieved 2016-11-13.
6. Chalian, David (November 4, 2016). "Road to 270: CNN's new election map". CNN. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
7. "2016 Electoral Scorecard". The Cook Political Report. November 7, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
8. "2016 Electoral Map Prediction". Electoral-vote.com. November 8, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
9. Sabato, Larry J. (November 7, 2016). "2016 President". University of Virginia Center for Politics. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
10. "Electoral Scorecard: Map shifts again in Trump's favor, as Clinton holds edge". Fox News. 2016-11-07. Retrieved 2016-11-13.
11. Editors (2017). "RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - Vermont: Trump vs. Clinton". www.realclearpolitics.com. Retrieved 2020-09-15.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
12. "Presidential Election Statement of Votes". Vermont Secretary of State. Retrieved November 26, 2016.
13. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G16/VT The Green Papers
14. "Here's a map of the US counties that flipped to Trump from Democrats". www.cnbc.com. Retrieved 2020-09-01.

External links

• RNC 2016 Republican Nominating Process
• Green papers for 2016 primaries, caucuses, and conventions
• Decision Desk Headquarter Results for Vermont