November 8, 2016 2020 → 3 0 117,442 20,845 Date 8 November 2016 | Turnout 69.62% 227,701 117,442 61.5% 31.7% | |
The 2016 United States presidential election in South Dakota was held on November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 General 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 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 June 7, 2016, in the presidential primaries, South Dakota voters will express their preferences for the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian parties' respective nominees for President. Registered members of each party may only vote in their party's primary.
South Dakota has voted for the Republican ticket in every election since 1968. Donald Trump continued the Republican tradition in South Dakota, carrying the state with 61.5% of the vote. Hillary Clinton received 31.7% of the vote.South Dakota was also one of eight states where Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson won over 5% of the vote.
Democratic primary
Five candidates appeared on the Democratic presidential primary ballot:
Republican primary
Three candidates appeared on the Republican presidential primary ballot. The only candidate with a campaign that remained active was Donald Trump.
Results by county
Unofficial results by county last updated November 9, 2016.
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. 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. 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 Stanley 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.