11 0 909,146 863,530 48.00% 45.59% Start date November 5, 1996 | 0 0 863,530 105,918 45.59% 5.59% | |
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The 1996 United States presidential election in Tennessee took place on November 5, 1996. All 50 states and the District of Columbia, were part of the 1996 United States presidential election. Tennessee voters chose 11 electors to the Electoral College, which selected the President and Vice President.
Tennessee was won by incumbent United States President Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who was running against Kansas Senator Bob Dole. Clinton ran a second time with former Tennessee Senator Al Gore as Vice President, and Dole ran with former New York Congressman Jack Kemp.
Tennessee weighed in for this election as 5% more Republican than the national average. As of 2016, this is the last time that the Democratic nominee carried Tennessee.
Partisan background
The presidential election of 1996 was a very multi-partisan election for Tennessee, with nearly 7% of the electorate voting for third-party candidates. Most counties in Tennessee turned out for Clinton, including the highly populated Shelby County and Davidson County, by narrow margins. Both Shelby and Davidson counties have been consistently Democratic since the election of 1992.
In his second bid for the Presidency, Ross Perot led the newly reformed Reform Party to gain over 5% of the votes in Tennessee, and to pull in support nationally as the most popular third-party candidate to run for United States Presidency in recent times.