2016 United States presidential election in West Virginia
Updated: Wikipedia source
The 2016 United States presidential election in West Virginia was held on November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 general election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. West Virginia voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote pitting the Republican nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. On May 10, 2016, in the presidential primaries, West Virginia voters expressed their preferences for the Democratic, Republican, Green, and Libertarian parties' respective nominees for president. Registered members of each party only voted in their party's primary, while voters who were unaffiliated chose any one primary in which to vote. Donald Trump won West Virginia with 68.5% of the vote, his largest share of the vote in any state. Hillary Clinton received just over a quarter of the vote, with 26.4%. Trump's performance in the state made it his strongest state in the 2016 election by total vote share. West Virginia was also one of two states where Donald Trump won every county, the other being Oklahoma. This was the second consecutive presidential election where every county within the state voted Republican. Trump's 42.1% margin of victory is the largest of any presidential candidate from either party in the state's history, besting Abraham Lincoln's 36.4% margin of victory in 1864. Hillary Clinton's performance was the worst by a major party nominee since 1912, when three candidates split the vote and received over 20% of the vote each, and, as of the 2024 election, remains the worst performance ever by a Democrat in West Virginia. Clinton won fewer votes in the general election than were cast in her party's primary overall, as well as fewer than she received in the 2008 state primary. Clinton also received the fewest votes for a Democrat in a West Virginia presidential election since 1916, exactly 100 years prior.