November 8, 2016 2020 → 9 0 1,202,484 144,121 Date 8 November 2016 | Turnout 74.46% 1,338,870 1,202,484 48.16% 43.25% | |
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The 2016 United States presidential election in Colorado was held on November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 General Election in which all 50 states plus The District of Columbia participated. Colorado 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 Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.
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On March 1, 2016, in the presidential primaries, Colorado voters expressed their preferences for the Democratic, Libertarian, Constitution, Nutrition, and Prohibition parties' respective nominees for President. The Republican Party did not hold a preference poll because the party decided to cancel it in August 2015. Registered members of each party only voted in their party's primary, while unaffiliated voters were unable to participate.
Hillary Clinton won the election in Colorado with 48.2% of the vote. Donald Trump received 43.3% of the vote, a Democratic margin of victory of 4.9%. This was the third time since achieving statehood that the Republican candidate won the election without carrying Colorado, and the second time since statehood that Colorado has voted Democratic in three consecutive presidential elections. No Republican had won the White House without carrying the state since 1908. Trump won five counties that had voted for President Obama in 2012; Conejos County, Chaffee County, Huerfano County, Las Animas County, and Pueblo County. The latter two counties had not supported a Republican for president since Richard Nixon's 49-state landslide in 1972.
Results
Results of the county assemblies Timeframe for the county assemblies: March 2–26, 2016
State convention date: April 16, 2016
Republican conventions
From April 2–8, 2016, conventions were held in each of Colorado's seven congressional districts. Cruz swept all seven, winning 21 delegates total. On April 9, 2016, the state convention was held to elect the 13 statewide delegates and the 3 RNC delegates. Again, Cruz won all 13 statewide at-large delegates. Cruz was also the only candidate to address the state convention.
A proposal to forbid Colorado Republican delegates from voting for Donald Trump was written in March 2016 by Robert Zubrin. The group "Colorado Republicans for Liberty" handed out fliers of Zubrin's resolution at the state's convention. Irregularities on the ballot were discovered at the state's convention. Delegate #379 (Jerome Parks, a Trump delegate) was replaced on the ballot with a duplicate of delegate #378 (a Ted Cruz delegate). The Colorado Republican Party's Twitter account posted the message "We did it #NeverTrump" after Cruz received all the bound delegates at the April convention. The party claims somebody hacked its Twitter account, and the party claims to be investigating how the message was posted. In May 2015, the Colorado Senate defeated a bill to hold a 2016 presidential primary. State senators Kevin Grantham, Kent Lambert, Laura J. Woods, and Jerry Sonnenberg voted to stop the bill. Sonnenberg, Woods, Grantham, and Lambert are members of the Ted Cruz "Colorado Leadership Team" for Ted Cruz. Congressman Ken Buck and Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams are also members of the Ted Cruz "Colorado Leadership Team".
The conventions were selected through statewide caucuses, which were conducted at the precinct level on March 1. No voter preference poll was held due to a decision in August by the state party to cancel it.
Three candidates contested the Republican presidential conventions:
Marco Rubio and Ben Carson had dropped out of the race by the time the conventions were held, though they were still running during the March 1 caucuses.
Green Party convention
On April 3, the Green Party of Colorado held a presidential nominating convention in Centennial, Colorado for registered Green voters.
On April 4, the Green Party of Colorado announced that Jill Stein had won the convention and received all 5 delegates.
Analysis
Historically, Colorado has been one of the most Republican states in the nation, having been one of the few states to vote against Franklin D. Roosevelt during the New Deal during the 1940 and the 1944 presidential elections. No Republican had won a presidential election without winning Colorado from 1908 through 2012: before 2008, Colorado had not voted Democrat in any presidential election with the exception of 1992 (where Bill Clinton won by a plurality due to Ross Perot's candidacy) and 1964 (When Lyndon B. Johnson won in a landslide). However, increasing urbanization in the Front Range Urban Corridor, along with the growth of minority populations (especially Hispanics) have chipped away from Republican dominance in the state: while President George W. Bush won the state in the 2004 election, it was one of the few states where Republican performance fell (this time by half), leading to Barack Obama to carry the state twice in 2008 and 2012.
Trump improved upon previous Republican candidates in Southern Colorado, once the state's Democratic stronghold: however, the Democratic dominance of this blue collar, working class industrial area is starting to fade. Trump carried three of the area's counties (Conejos County, Las Animas County and Huerfano County), a feat not accomplished by any Republican since George H. W. Bush in his 1988 landslide: he also carried Pueblo County by a 0.49% margin, making it the closest county in the state. Trump also did well in the Western Slope, where counties like Mesa County (home to Grand Junction) went for Trump on a 2-1 margin.
However, as is with the case with Nevada and other states in the American Southwest that have been experiencing increasing urbanization, Clinton won by running up the margins in the rapidly growing metro areas of the state - in this case, Denver and Colorado Springs. While Trump did win El Paso County (home of Colorado Springs), he won with only 56% of the vote, performing worse than McCain did in the 2008 election; Clinton made up for lost votes in rest of the state through larger margins in Boulder and the nearby Denver Metropolitan Area, where power is usually split between Democrats and moderate Republicans downballot: very rarely has any race statewide been won without carrying the area. Trump only won one county in the metro area (Douglas County - home to suburbs such as Parker, Highlands Ranch and Castle Rock), but with only 54% of the vote - one of the poorest performances in the area's most Republican county in decades. Clinton exceeded Obama's performance in the City and County of Denver and Boulder County, the Democrats' main base in Colorado; while she was not able to exceed Obama's performance in the suburban counties surrounding Denver, Trump posted some of the worst results Republicans have in decades in this region. Trump only won 39% of the vote in Arapahoe County, which includes some of the largest Denver suburbs such as Aurora and Centennial; before Obama won this county in 2008, this county had not gone Democratic since 1964 (not even Bill Clinton could win here even while he carried the state in 1992). Trump barely got over 40 percent in surrounding Jefferson and Adams counties (partially due to a surge in third party voters for Gary Johnson). The Republican losses in this vital area ultimately handed the state to Clinton.
In downballot races, Mike Coffman was ultimately able to hold on to his seat in a Clinton-carried district around Arapahoe County. Democrats made big gains in this area in the State House and Senate. However, Republicans were able to gain a seat in Adams County, ultimately holding on to the State Senate.