2016 United States presidential election in South Dakota

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2016 United States presidential election in South Dakota
Flag of South Dakota.svg
  2012 November 8, 2016 2020  
Turnout59.90% [1]
  Portrait of President-elect Donald Trump (cropped).jpg Hillary Clinton by Gage Skidmore 2.jpg Gary Johnson June 2016.jpg
Nominee Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Gary Johnson
Party Republican Democratic Libertarian
Home state New York New York New Mexico
Running mate Mike Pence Tim Kaine Bill Weld
Electoral vote300
Popular vote227,721117,45820,845
Percentage61.53%31.74%5.63%

South Dakota Presidential Election Results 2016.svg
SD President 2016.svg

President before election

Barack Obama
Democratic

Elected President

Donald Trump
Republican

Results by county showing number of votes by size and candidates by color South Dakota 2016 presidential results.png
Results by county showing number of votes by size and candidates by color
Treemap of the popular vote by county. United States presidential election in South Dakota, 2016.svg
Treemap of the popular vote by county.

The 2016 United States presidential election in South Dakota 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. South Dakota voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting the Republican nominee, celebrity 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.

Contents

South Dakota has voted for the Republican ticket in every election since 1968. South Dakota was also Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson's fifth strongest state in the 2016 election, which his 5.63% in popular vote being only behind New Mexico, North Dakota, Alaska and Oklahoma. [2]

Donald Trump continued the Republican tradition in South Dakota, carrying the state with 61.5% of the vote, to Hillary Clinton's 31.7% of the vote, [3] a 29.8% margin of victory, the largest margin of victory for a candidate of either party since Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower's 38.5% margin in 1952. South Dakota shifted rightward by 12%, one of the larger rightward shifts in 2016. This highlighted the strong rightward shift among white working class voters, particularly in rural areas in Northern states. [4]

Primary elections

Democratic primary

Two candidates appeared on the Democratic presidential primary ballot:

South Dakota Democratic primary, June 7, 2016
CandidatePopular voteEstimated delegates
CountPercentagePledgedUnpledgedTotal
Hillary Clinton 27,04751.03%10212
Bernie Sanders 25,95948.97%10010
Uncommitted033
Total53,006100%20525
Source: [5] [6]

Republican primary

Three candidates appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot. The only candidate with a campaign that remained active was Donald Trump. Trump's state director was Neal Tapio.

Republican primary results by county.
Donald Trump South Dakota Republican Presidential Caucuses Election Results by County, 2016.svg
Republican primary results by county.
  Donald Trump
South Dakota Republican primary, June 7, 2016
CandidateVotesPercentageActual delegate count
BoundUnboundTotal
Donald Trump44,86767.09%29029
Ted Cruz (withdrawn)11,35216.97%000
John Kasich (withdrawn)10,66015.94%000
Unprojected delegates:000
Total:66,879100.00%29029
Source: The Green Papers

General election

Predictions

The following are final 2016 predictions from various organizations for South Dakota as of Election Day.

SourceRankingAs of
Los Angeles Times [7] Safe RNovember 6, 2016
CNN [8] Safe RNovember 8, 2016
Rothenberg Political Report [9] Safe RNovember 7, 2016
Sabato's Crystal Ball [10] Safe RNovember 7, 2016
NBC [11] Likely RNovember 7, 2016
RealClearPolitics [12] Likely RNovember 8, 2016
Fox News [13] Safe RNovember 7, 2016
ABC [14] Safe RNovember 7, 2016

Results

Chart of popular vote
  1. Trump (61.5%)
  2. Clinton (31.7%)
  3. Johnson (5.63%)
  4. Castle (1.10%)

Analysis

South Dakota gave Republican nominee Donald Trump a more than 29-point margin of victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, thus gaining him three electoral votes. [17] The Mount Rushmore state's politics are driven by agrarian conservatism, with the eastern portion of the state being largely rural and considered an extension of the Corn Belt. The western portion of the state is even more conservative. [18] South Dakota, like many neighboring majority-white Great Plains and prairie states in the Farm Belt, has not voted for a Democratic candidate since the landslide election of Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

Donald Trump carried most of the state's counties, including Hughes County where the capital city of Pierre is located, Pennington County which contains Rapid City, Minnehaha County which contains Sioux Falls, Brown County which contains Aberdeen, and Codington County which contains Watertown. Clinton won only five counties statewide: Todd, Buffalo, Dewey, and Oglala Lakota, all of which are majority Native American, and Clay County which contains the University of South Dakota. [19] However, Trump did fare well with some Native American groups, and thus held the Native American-majority counties of Bennett, Corson, Mellette and Ziebach, along with the plurality-Native county of Jackson. Distinctly noticeable were the split of both the Pine Ridge and Standing Rock reservations votes and the majority-Native counties they contained: the western half of Pine Ridge (Oglala Lakota County) voted Democrat, while eastern Pine Ridge (Bennett and Jackson Counties) voted Republican, and while northern Standing Rock (Sioux County) remained heavily Democratic, southern Standing Rock (Corson County) swung Republican for the first time in three elections.

See also

References

  1. "Voter turnout in United States elections".
  2. "2016 Presidential Election Statistics". Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved March 5, 2018.
  3. "South Dakota Election Results 2016". The New York Times. August 2017.
  4. Cohn, Nate (November 9, 2016). "Why Trump Won: Working-Class Whites". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved March 10, 2017.
  5. The Green Papers
  6. South Dakota Secretary of State - Official Primary Results
  7. "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.
  8. "Road to 270: CNN's general election map - CNNPolitics.com". Cnn.com. November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
  9. "Presidential Ratings". The Rothenberg Political Report. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
  10. "Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » 2016 President". Centerforpolitics.org. November 7, 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
  11. Todd, Chuck. "NBC's Final Battleground Map Shows Clinton With a Significant Lead". NBC News . Retrieved November 13, 2016.
  12. "2016 Election Maps - Battle for White House". RealClearPolitics. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
  13. "Electoral Scorecard: Map shifts again in Trump's favor, as Clinton holds edge". Fox News. November 7, 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
  14. "The Final 15: The Latest Polls in the Swing States That Will Decide the Election". Abcnews.go.com. November 7, 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2016.
  15. "2016 Presidential General Election Results - South Dakota".
  16. Bump, Philip. "The counties that flipped parties to swing the 2016 election". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved September 1, 2020.
  17. "South Dakota Election Results 2016". The New York Times . Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  18. Cohen, Micah (August 24, 2012). "In South Dakota, Only the Farm Trumps Conservatism". FiveThirtyEight. Retrieved November 11, 2016.
  19. "2016 election results: South Dakota". www.cnn.com. Retrieved November 11, 2016.