2016 United States presidential election in New Hampshire

Main article: 2016 United States presidential election

2016 United States presidential election in New Hampshire

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Turnout	69.1% [1]
Nominee Hillary Clinton Donald Trump Party Democratic Republican Home state New York New York Running mate Tim Kaine Mike Pence Electoral vote 4 0 Popular vote 348,526 345,790 Percentage 47.62% 47.25%
County results Municipality results Precinct results Clinton   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100% Trump   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90% Tie/No data   50–60%
President before election Barack Obama Democratic Elected President Donald Trump Republican

Treemap of the popular vote by county

The 2016 United States presidential election in New Hampshire 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. New Hampshire voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and his running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence, against the Democratic Party's nominee, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. New Hampshire has four electoral votes in the Electoral College. ^[2]

Clinton won the state with 47.62% of the vote, while Trump lost with 47.25%, by a 0.37% margin or 2,736 votes. This result nonetheless made New Hampshire 1.73% more Republican than the nation-at-large, and remains the last time that New Hampshire has voted to the right of the national environment. This marked the second-closest margin percentage in the presidential election, behind only Michigan, and was Clinton's closest margin of victory of any state. This is the closest that a Republican nominee has come to carrying New Hampshire since 2000, when George W. Bush became the last Republican to carry the state. This also marked the first of only two times that a non-incumbent Republican won the White House without New Hampshire (along with 2024), and one of only three times overall (along with 2004 and 2024) in which any Republican won without carrying the state.

As of the 2024 election, this is the most recent election where Hillsborough County has voted Republican.

Primary elections

As per tradition and by New Hampshire electoral laws, ^[3] New Hampshire holds the primaries before any other state. As a result, candidates for nomination usually spend a long period campaigning in New Hampshire.

Democratic primary

Main article: 2016 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a campaign event in Manchester

Senator Bernie Sanders at a campaign event in Hooksett

In the New Hampshire Democratic primary taking place on February 9, 2016, there were 24 pledged delegates and 8 super delegates that went to the Democratic National Convention. The pledged electors were allocated in this way. 16 delegates were allocated proportionally by congressional district (8 delegates per district). The other 8 delegates were allocated based on the statewide popular vote. ^[4]

Results

New Hampshire Democratic primary, February 9, 2016
Candidate	Popular vote		Estimated delegates
	Count	Of total	Pledged	Unpledged	Total
Bernie Sanders	152,193	60.14%	15	1	16
Hillary Clinton	95,355	37.68%	9	6	15
Martin O'Malley (withdrawn)	667	0.26%
Vermin Supreme	268	0.11%
David John Thistle	226	0.09%
Graham Schwass	143	0.06%
Steve Burke	108	0.04%
Rocky De La Fuente	96	0.04%
John Wolfe Jr.	54	0.02%
Jon Adams	53	0.02%
Lloyd Thomas Kelso	46	0.02%
Keith Russell Judd	44	0.02%
Eric Elbot	36	0.01%
Star Locke	33	0.01%
William D. French	29	0.01%
Mark Stewart Greenstein	29	0.01%
Edward T. O'Donnell	26	0.01%
James Valentine	24	0.01%
Robert Lovitt	22	0.01%
Michael Steinberg	21	0.01%
William H. McGaughey Jr.	19	0.01%
Henry Hewes	18	0.01%
Edward Sonnino	17	0.01%
Steven Roy Lipscomb	15	0.01%
Sam Sloan	15	0.01%
Brock C. Hutton	14	0.01%
Raymond Michael Moroz	8	0.00%
Richard Lyons Weil	8	0.00%
Write-ins [a]	3,475	1.37%
Uncommitted	—		0	1	1
Total	253,062	100%	24	8	32
Sources: [6] [7]

Republican primary

Main article: 2016 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary

Businessman Donald Trump at a campaign event in Derry

Senator Marco Rubio at a campaign event in Manchester

Senator Ted Cruz at a campaign event in Manchester

Governor John Kasich at a campaign event in Nashua

The New Hampshire Republican primary took place on February 9, 2016, where there were 23 bound delegates which were allocated proportionally and a candidate has to get at least 10% of the vote to get any delegates to the Republican National Convention. ^[8]

Results

New Hampshire Republican primary, February 9, 2016

Candidate	Votes	Percentage	Actual delegate count
			Bound	Unbound	Total
Donald Trump	100,735	35.23%	11	0	11
John Kasich	44,932	15.72%	4	0	4
Ted Cruz	33,244	11.63%	3	0	3
Jeb Bush	31,341	10.96%	3	0	3
Marco Rubio	30,071	10.52%	2	0	2
Chris Christie	21,089	7.38%	0	0	0
Carly Fiorina	11,774	4.12%	0	0	0
Ben Carson	6,527	2.28%	0	0	0
Rand Paul (withdrawn)	1,930	0.68%	0	0	0
Write-ins	2,912	1.02%	0	0	0
Mike Huckabee (withdrawn)	216	0.08%	0	0	0
Andy Martin	202	0.07%	0	0	0
Rick Santorum (withdrawn)	160	0.06%	0	0	0
Jim Gilmore	134	0.05%	0	0	0
Richard Witz	104	0.04%	0	0	0
George Pataki (withdrawn)	79	0.03%	0	0	0
Lindsey Graham (withdrawn)	73	0.03%	0	0	0
Brooks Andrews Cullison	56	0.02%	0	0	0
Timothy Cook	55	0.02%	0	0	0
Bobby Jindal (withdrawn)	53	0.02%	0	0	0
Frank Lynch	47	0.02%	0	0	0
Joe Robinson	44	0.02%	0	0	0
Stephen Bradley Comley	32	0.01%	0	0	0
Chomi Prag	16	0.01%	0	0	0
Jacob Daniel Dyas	15	0.01%	0	0	0
Stephen John McCarthy	12	0%	0	0	0
Walter Iwachiw	9	0%	0	0	0
Kevin Glenn Huey	8	0%	0	0	0
Matt Drozd	6	0%	0	0	0
Robert Lawrence Mann	5	0%	0	0	0
Peter Messina	5	0%	0	0	0
Unprojected delegates:			0	0	0
Total:	285,916	100.00%	23	0	23
Source: The Green Papers

Note: Delegates were awarded to candidates who got 10% or more of the vote proportionally. Of the 25 candidate/hopefuls, five candidates garnered delegates.

Results by county

County	Trump	Kasich	Cruz
Belknap	35.16%	15.73%	12.89%
Carroll	33.95%	18.55%	11.05%
Cheshire	33.42%	16.05%	13.92%
Coos	36.99%	15.97%	10.18%
Grafton	29.36%	20.83%	10.35%
Hillsborough	34.89%	14.89%	11.43%
Merrimack	33.02%	18.61%	11.39%
Rockingham	38.73%	13.98%	10.78%
Strafford	33.40%	14.50%	15.09%
Sullivan	36.73%	15.91%	11.34%
TOTAL	35.23%	15.71%	11.63%
Source: uselectionatlas.org

General election

Predictions

Source	Ranking	As of
Los Angeles Times [9]	Likely D	November 6, 2016
CNN [10]	Tossup	November 4, 2016
Cook Political Report [11]	Lean D	November 7, 2016
Electoral-vote.com [12]	Lean D	November 8, 2016
Rothenberg Political Report [13]	Lean D	November 7, 2016
Sabato's Crystal Ball [14]	Lean D	November 7, 2016
RealClearPolitics [15]	Tossup	November 8, 2016
Fox News [16]	Tossup	November 7, 2016

Polling

See also: Statewide opinion polling for the 2016 United States presidential election § New Hampshire

Up until late October 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton won almost every pre-election poll. On November 1, just one week before the election, Republican Donald Trump won a poll for the first time, 44% to 42%. In the final week, Trump won 4 polls to Clinton's 2 and one tie. The final poll showed a 45% to 44% lead for Clinton, which was accurate compared to the results. ^[17] The average of the final 3 polls showed Clinton up 45% to 42%. ^[18]

Results

General election results, November 8, 2016 ^[19]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Hillary Clinton	348,526	47.62%
	Republican	Donald Trump	345,790	47.25%
	Libertarian	Gary Johnson	30,694	4.13%
	Green	Jill Stein	6,465	0.87%
	Democratic	Bernie Sanders (write-in)	4,493	0.60%
	Republican	John Kasich (write-in)	1,365	0.18%
	Independent	Evan McMullin (write-in)	1,064	0.14%
	Reform	Rocky De La Fuente	677	0.09%
	Republican	Mitt Romney (write-in)	540	0.07%
	Republican	Paul Ryan (write-in)	280	0.04%
	Republican	Jeb Bush (write-in)	230	0.03%
	Republican	Marco Rubio (write-in)	136	0.02%
	Republican	Ted Cruz (write-in)	129	0.02%
	Republican	John McCain (write-in)	127	0.02%
	Libertarian	Ron Paul (write-in)	98	0.01%
	Republican	Ben Carson (write-in)	83	0.01%
	Libertarian	Vermin Supreme (write-in)	58	0.01%
	Democratic	Joe Biden (write-in)	55	0.01%
	Republican	Chris Christie (write-in)	23	0.00%
Total votes			743,117	100.00%

By county

County	Hillary Clinton Democratic		Donald Trump Republican		Various candidates Other parties		Margin		Total votes cast
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
Belknap	13,517	38.57%	19,315	55.11%	2,213	6.32%	-5,798	-16.54%	35,045
Carroll	12,987	43.85%	14,635	49.42%	1,994	6.73%	-1,648	-5.57%	29,616
Cheshire	22,064	52.66%	16,876	40.28%	2,955	7.06%	5,188	12.38%	41,895
Coos	6,563	42.00%	7,952	50.89%	1,112	7.11%	-1,389	-8.89%	15,627
Grafton	28,510	55.69%	19,010	37.14%	3,671	7.17%	9,500	18.55%	51,191
Hillsborough	99,589	46.50%	100,013	46.70%	14,555	6.80%	-424	-0.20%	214,157
Merrimack	40,198	48.06%	37,674	45.04%	5,776	6.90%	2,524	3.02%	83,648
Rockingham	79,994	44.09%	90,447	49.85%	10,993	6.06%	-10,453	-5.76%	181,434
Strafford	34,894	50.57%	29,072	42.13%	5,034	7.30%	5,822	8.44%	69,000
Sullivan	10,210	45.01%	10,796	47.60%	1,677	7.39%	-586	-2.59%	22,683
Totals	348,526	46.83%	345,790	46.46%	49,980	6.71%	2,736	0.37%	744,296

Swing by county

Legend

•   Democratic — +2.5-5%
•   Democratic — +0-2.5%
•   Republican — +0-2.5%
•   Republican — +2.5-5%
•   Republican — +5-7.5%
•   Republican — +7.5-10%
•   Republican — +10-12.5%
•   Republican — +>15%

Trend relative to the state by county

Legend

•   Democratic — +2.5-5%
•   Democratic — +0-2.5%
•   Republican — +0-2.5%
•   Republican — +2.5-5%
•   Republican — +5-7.5%
•   Republican — +7.5-10%
•   Republican — +10-12.5%
•   Republican — +>15%

County flips

Legend

• Democratic   Hold

  Republican   Hold   Gain from Democratic

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Coös (largest city: Berlin)
• Hillsborough (largest city: Manchester)
• Sullivan (largest city: Claremont) ^[20]

By congressional district

Clinton and Trump each won a congressional district, with Trump winning one that elected a Democrat. ^[21]

District	Clinton	Trump	Representative
1st	46.6%	48.19%	Carol Shea-Porter
2nd	48.62%	46.22%	Ann McLane Kuster

Analysis

Hillary Clinton's margin of victory was the smallest for a Democrat in the state since Woodrow Wilson narrowly won it in 1916. New Hampshire last voted for a Republican, George W. Bush, in 2000, and although Trump did not win New Hampshire, the top-line county results were exactly the same in 2000 and 2016. Despite Trump's narrow loss, this would be the first and only presidential election since 2000 where New Hampshire would vote more Republican than the national average, when the Republican candidate won more of the state's counties, along with the first time since 1976 when the winner of Coos County did not also carry the state as well. Coincidentally, New Hampshire voted as Republican in 2016 as it did Democratic in 2012 in comparison to the rest of the nation.

Allegations of voting irregularities

On September 7, 2017, state House speaker Shawn Jasper announced that data showed that 6,540 people voted using out-of-state licenses. Of those, only 15% had received state licenses by August 2017. Of the remaining 5,526, only 3.3% had registered a motor vehicle in New Hampshire. In addition to the close vote for president, Democratic Governor Maggie Hassan defeated incumbent Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte by 1,017 votes. In February 2017, President Trump had told a gathering of senators at the White House that fraudulent out-of-state voting had cost him and Ayotte the election in New Hampshire. Mainstream media disputed Trump's and Jasper's assertion. ^[22] New Hampshire law permits New Hampshire residents to vote using out-of-state identification if they are domiciled in the state, out-of-state college students attending schools in New Hampshire being one example of such legitimate use of out-of-state identification. ^[23]

Several investigations by New Hampshire's Ballot Law Commission found no evidence of widespread fraud, and only 4 instances of fraud total in the state for the 2016 elections. ^[24] Specifically addressing the claim of people being bussed in from out of state to vote, Associate Attorney General Anne Edwards noted that they found no evidence for such claims. When they investigated these claims, they found that the buses were chartered out of state, but the voters on the buses lived in New Hampshire and could legally vote there. ^[25]

See also

• First presidency of Donald Trump
• United States presidential elections in New Hampshire
• 2016 Democratic Party presidential debates and forums
• 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries
• 2016 Republican Party presidential debates and forums
• 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries

Notes

1. The write-ins include 3,248 votes for these 11 Republican presidential candidates: Trump (1795), Kasich (438), Jeb Bush (263), Christie (216), Marco Rubio (203), Ted Cruz (162), Fiorina (99), Carson (52), Paul (12), Gilmore (6), Huckabee (2). ^[5]

References

1. DiStaso, John. "More than 73 percent of NH's voting age population cast ballots, resulting in record turnout". wmur.com. Hearst Television inc. Retrieved April 17, 2022.
2. "Distribution of Electoral Votes". National Archives and Records Administration . September 19, 2019. Retrieved December 14, 2020.
3. Gregg, Hugh (1997). "First-In-The-Nation Presidential Primary". New Hampshire Almanac. State of New Hampshire. Retrieved August 4, 2016.
4. "New Hampshire Democratic Delegation 2016". www.thegreenpapers.com. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
5. "2016 Presidential Primary - Democratic President: Summary Democratic Write-ins". New Hampshire Secretary of State . Archived from the original on February 14, 2020. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
6. "2016 Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, and Conventions: New Hampshire Democrat Presidential Nominating Process". The Green Papers. December 5, 2019. Archived from the original on February 18, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2016.
7. "2016 Presidential Primary - Democratic President: Summary Democratic 16PP". New Hampshire Secretary of State . February 2016. Archived from the original on February 14, 2020. Retrieved February 14, 2020.
8. "New Hampshire Republican Delegation 2016". www.thegreenpapers.com. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
9. "Our final map has Clinton winning with 352 electoral votes. Compare your picks with ours". Los Angeles Times . November 6, 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
10. Chalian, David (November 4, 2016). "Road to 270: CNN's new election map". CNN . Retrieved March 3, 2019.
11. "2016 Electoral Scorecard". The Cook Political Report . November 7, 2016. Archived from the original on March 1, 2019. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
12. "2016 Electoral Map Prediction". Electoral-vote.com . November 8, 2016. Retrieved March 3, 2019.
13. "Presidential Ratings". The Rothenberg Political Report. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
14. Sabato, Larry J. (November 7, 2016). "2016 President". University of Virginia Center for Politics . Retrieved March 3, 2019.
15. "2016 Election Maps - Battle for White House". RealClearPolitics. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
16. "Electoral Scorecard: Map shifts again in Trump's favor, as Clinton holds edge". Fox News. November 7, 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
17. "RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - New Hampshire: Trump vs. Clinton".
18. "RealClearPolitics - Election 2016 - New Hampshire: Trump vs. Clinton".
19. Federal Election Commission
20. Bump, Philip. "The counties that flipped parties to swing the 2016 election". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved September 1, 2020.
21. "Daily Kos Elections' statewide election results by congressional and legislative districts". Daily Kos. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
22. Weigel, David, "Election Integrity Commission members accuse New Hampshire voters of fraud", The Washington Post , 8 September 2017' Scarborough, Rowan, "More than 5,000 out-of-state voters may have tipped New Hampshire against Trump", Washington Times , September 7, 2017
23. UNH Votes, ""
24. "After Exhaustive Investigations, NH Officials Find No Widespread Fraud in Recent Elections". New Hampshire Public Radio. May 29, 2018. Retrieved December 3, 2018.
25. "After Exhaustive Investigations, NH Officials Find No Widespread Fraud in Recent Elections". New Hampshire Public Radio. May 29, 2018. Retrieved December 3, 2018.

External links

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