2016 United States presidential election

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton and Virginia junior senator Tim Kaine, in what was considered one of the biggest political upsets in American history. It was the fifth and most recent presidential election in which the winning candidate lost the popular vote.

Incumbent Democratic president Barack Obama was ineligible to pursue a third term due to the term limits established by the Twenty-second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Clinton secured the nomination over U.S. senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary and became the first female presidential nominee of a major American political party. Initially considered a novelty candidate, Trump presented himself as a blunt-spoken political outsider and emerged as the Republican front-runner, defeating several notable opponents, including U.S. senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, as well as governors John Kasich and Jeb Bush. Trump's right-wing populist, nationalist campaign, which promised to "Make America Great Again" and opposed political correctness, and many US free trade agreements, while supporting a more hard-line approach on illegal immigration, garnered extensive free media coverage due to Trump's inflammatory comments. Clinton emphasized her extensive political experience; denounced Trump and half of his supporters as "deplorable" bigots and extremists; and advocated the expansion of Obama's policies, stressing racial equality, LGBT rights, women's rights, and inclusive capitalism.

The tone of the election campaign was widely characterized as divisive, negative, and troubling. Trump faced controversy over his views on race and immigration, incidents of violence against protesters at his rallies, and numerous sexual misconduct allegations including the Access Hollywood tape. Clinton's popularity and public image were tarnished by concerns about her ethics and trustworthiness, and a controversy and subsequent FBI investigation regarding her improper use of a private email server while serving as secretary of state, which received more media coverage than any other topic during the campaign. Clinton led in almost every nationwide and swing-state poll, with some predictive models giving her over a 90 percent chance of victory.

On election day, Trump over-performed his polls, winning several key swing states to achieve a majority in the Electoral College while losing the nationwide popular vote by 2.87 million votes. Key to Trump's pivotal upset victory were his wins in the Democratic-leaning Rust Belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which he carried by fewer than 80,000 votes in the three "blue wall" states combined and gained a combined 46 electoral votes. Trump's surprise victories were perceived to have been assisted by Clinton's lack of campaigning in some swing states (especially Wisconsin), the rightward shift of the white working class, as well as the influence of Obama–Trump voters and Sanders–Trump voters. Ultimately, Trump received 304 electoral votes to Clinton's 227, as two faithless electors defected from Trump and five from Clinton. Trump was the first president with neither prior public service nor military experience.

With ballot access to the entire national electorate, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson received nearly 4.5 million votes (3.27%), the highest nationwide vote share for a third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1996, while Green Party nominee Jill Stein received almost 1.45 million votes (1.06%). Independent candidate Evan McMullin received 21.4% of the vote in his home state of Utah, the highest share of the vote for a non-major party candidate in any state since 1992.

On January 6, 2017, the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that the Russian government had interfered in the election in order to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency". A Special Counsel investigation concluded in March 2019 that Russia had interfered "in sweeping and systematic fashion" in favor of Trump's candidacy, but did not establish that members of the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government.