2016 United States presidential election in Minnesota
Updated: Wikipedia source
The 2016 United States presidential election in Minnesota was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all 50 states and the District of Columbia participated. Minnesota 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 DFL nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Minnesota has ten electoral votes in the Electoral College. Despite Trump flipping numerous Midwestern states, some of which had not voted Republican since the 1980s, Minnesota was still won with a plurality by Clinton with a 1.51% margin, the eleventh consecutive Democratic presidential win in the state, which has not voted for a Republican since the landslide reelection of Richard Nixon in 1972. However, this was the closest presidential election in Minnesota since 1984, when Walter Mondale carried the state by a 0.18% margin and it was the only state not carried by Ronald Reagan that year; it is also the lowest winning percentage for any Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1996. Despite Trump falling short in Minnesota, Trump would become the first Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1952 to carry Swift County, a rural western Minnesota county. Trump would also flip Itasca County, making him the first Republican to carry the county nestled in the Iron range since Hoover in 1928. Trump, by far, has had the strongest performance of any Republican Presidential candidate in the Iron Range of North Eastern Minnesota, since Herbert Hoover won the region and the Counties of St. Louis, Lake, Itasca, and Carlton in 1928. Carlton County would break a 96-year streak of voting Democratic when Trump went on to flip the County in the 2024 Presidential election. Following the Presidential election of 1928, the Iron Range of Minnesota, particularly the east, would become one of the strongest Democratic strongholds in the U.S. for decades. Minnesota had the highest voter turnout in the nation, with approximately 75% of the state's eligible voters participating in the general election. One elector, Muhammud Abdurrahan, tried to vote for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont but was replaced with an elector that voted for Clinton. As of the 2024 election, this is the most recent election where Clay County voted Republican. This was the last time which any candidate won a majority of congressional districts in the state.