November 8, 2016 2020 → 36 (Trump)
37 (Pence) 0 52.2% 43.2% | Turnout 59.39% 4,685,047 3,877,868 Date 8 November 2016 | |
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Trump
40-50%
50-60%
60-70%
70-80%
80-90%
>90% Clinton
40-50%
50-60%
60-70%
70-80% | ||
The 2016 United States presidential election in Texas was won by Republican Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence by an 8.99% margin over Democrats Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, part of the November 8, 2016 General Election. Texas assigns its 38 Electoral College votes to the state's popular vote winner, but two faithless electors chose other candidates, making Texas the only state in 2016 to give Trump less than the assigned electoral votes.
Contents
When the electoral college met on December 19, 2016, only 36 out of the 38 electors voted for Trump for President. Two electors defected, one to Ohio Governor John Kasich, and the other to Congressman Ron Paul. For Vice President, 37 electors voted for Pence, and one for Carly Fiorina.
The primary of March 1, 2016 included the Green Party, in addition to the two major parties.
Hillary Clinton performed better in Texas than any Democrat since 1996, which analysts attributed to ongoing demographic changes.
Democratic primary
The Texas Democratic Party held their state's primary in concurrence with the other Super Tuesday contests on March 1. Eight candidates appeared on the ballot, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, dropped-out candidate Martin O'Malley and five minor candidates (Rocky De La Fuente, Willie Wilson, Star Locke, Keith Russell Judd and Calvis Hawes.) The Texas Democratic primary had 251 delegates to the Democratic National Convention; 222 pledged delegates and 29 super delegates. 145 delegates were allocated proportionally based on the results in the state's 31 senatorial districts. The other 77 pledged delegates were allocated proportionally based on the statewide popular vote.
Debates and forums
February 24, 2016 – Houston, Texas Megyn Kelly hosted a two-hour town hall event on The Kelly File with Kasich, Cruz, Rubio, and Carson in attendance. Trump did not participate in the forum.
February 25, 2016 – Houston, Texas
After the caucus in Nevada, the tenth debate was held at the University of Houston in Houston and broadcast by CNN as its third of four debates, in conjunction with Telemundo. The debate aired five days before 14 states vote on Super Tuesday, March 1. While the debate was to be held in partnership with Telemundo's English-language counterpart NBC, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus announced on October 30, 2015, that it had suspended the partnership in response to CNBC's "bad faith" in handling the October 28, 2015, debate. On January 18, 2016, the RNC announced that CNN would replace NBC News as the main host of the debate, in partnership with Telemundo and Salem Communications (CNN's conservative media partner). The debate was shifted a day earlier at the same time. National Review was disinvited by the Republican National Committee from co-hosting the debate over its criticism of GOP front-runner Donald Trump. On February 19, the criteria for invitation to the debate was announced: in addition to having official statements of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission and accepting the rules of the debate, candidates must have received at least 5% support in one of the first four election contests held in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. By these criteria, all five remaining candidates, Carson, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, and Trump, qualified for invitation to the debate. The 155 delegates to the Republican National Convention were allocated in this way. 108 delegates are allocated by congressional district; 3 per district. If a candidate gets over 50% of the vote in a congressional district; they would win all of the district's 3 delegates. If no one had a majority and one candidate had at least 20% of the vote, the candidate winning the plurality would get 2 delegates and the candidate in second place would get 1 delegate. If nobody receives at least 20% of the vote, the top 3 vote-getters each get 1 delegate. There were another 47 at-large delegates. If someone received more than 50% of the vote, they would get all of the at-large delegates. If no one got more than 50% of the vote and there were at least 2 candidates that got over 20% of the vote, the delegates would be allocated proportionally among the candidates receiving more than 20% of the vote. If only one candidate got over 20% of the vote and not a majority, the delegates would be allocated between the candidate that got over 20% of the vote and the candidate who received the 2nd most amount of votes. If no candidate got 20%, they would allocate all of the 47 at-large delegates proportionally.
Green primary
The Texas Green Party held its elections at conventions at the precinct level on March 8, the county level on March 12, and the district level on March 19, leading up to the state nominating convention in Grey Forest, Texas on April 9 and 10.
On April 10 it was announced Jill Stein had won the convention.
Demographics
The last time Texas voted for a Democratic candidate was the 1976 Presidential election when Jimmy Carter won 51.14% of the popular vote. Hispanic participation can create a very interesting and unpredictable outcome, especially on the Democratic statewide tickets since they lean heavily Democratic. The Hispanic turnout has increased by approximately 200,000 for each and every presidential election since 2000.
Predictions
The following are final 2016 predictions from various organizations for Texas as of Election Day.
- Los Angeles Times: Leans Trump
- CNN: Solid Trump
- Sabato's Crystal Ball: Solid Trump
- NBC: Leans Trump
- Electoral-vote.com: Leans Trump
- RealClearPolitics: Leans Trump
- Fox News: Leans Trump
- ABC: Solid Trump
Analysis
Continuing the Republican 10-cycle winning streak in Texas, Trump's winning margin was down from Mitt Romney's 16% in 2012 to 8.99%, a 7.01% drop, making 2016 the closest Democrats had come to winning Texas since 1996. This can partly be attributed to a growing population of Hispanics/Latinos, along with cities and their respective suburbs in the Texas Triangle region swinging more democratic than in 2012. These were Clinton's main voter sources. She had swept the southernmost counties, such as Webb and Cameron in the state as they have sizable Hispanic populations. Clinton also took the urban counties of El Paso, Bexar (San Antonio), Travis (Austin), Dallas, and in Harris County (Houston), where she turned the historically thin vote margins of previous cycles into a 12-point lead. Places that had large amounts of young voters in the state were a stronghold for Clinton as well.
In total, Clinton, beat Trump in 27 counties by a total of 883,819 votes, and had the best percentage performance than any other Democrat running statewide. Conversely, Trump, who won 227 of the state's 254 counties, got the smallest percentage of the vote than all other Republicans running in the state.