2016 United States presidential election in Michigan
The 2016 United States presidential election in Michigan was held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016, as part of the 2016 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Michigan voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, businessman Donald Trump, and his running mate Indiana Governor Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and her running mate Virginia Senator Tim Kaine. Michigan has 16 electoral votes in the Electoral College.
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| Turnout | 63% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Michigan |
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In the general election, Trump unexpectedly won Michigan by a narrow margin of 0.23%, with 47.50% of the total votes over Clinton's 47.27%. This is the narrowest margin of victory in Michigan's history in presidential elections, as well as the narrowest margin of any state in the 2016 election. All of Michigan's 16 Electoral College votes were thus assigned to Trump. Trump's victory in Michigan was attributed to overwhelming and underestimated support from white working-class citizens, a demographic group that had previously tended to either vote for the Democratic candidate or did not vote at all. By winning Michigan, Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate to win the state since George H. W. Bush in 1988. Michigan also became one of eleven states to vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996 which Hillary Clinton lost.
Michigan's largest county, Wayne County, home to Detroit, voted for Clinton by 37 points. She also managed to hold on to suburban Oakland County, the state's second-largest county, where residents tend to be more diverse and more white-collar, where instead third-party candidates gained votes, whilst Trump flipped the state's third largest county, Macomb County, which is home to more socially conservative but economically populist white blue-collar workers. As of 2020, this is the most recent election where Michigan voted to the right of Nevada.