2016 Republican Party presidential primaries
Presidential primaries and caucuses of the Republican Party took place within all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories between February 1 and June 7, 2016. These elections selected the 2,472 delegates that were sent to the Republican National Convention. Businessman and reality television star Donald Trump won the Republican nomination for president of the United States.
A total of 17 major candidates entered the race. Prior to the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, this was the largest presidential primary field for any political party in American history.[2] From early in the primary season, the race was characterized as a wide and diverse contest with no clear frontrunner. Early polling leaders included former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, among others. The race was disrupted by the unexpected entry of Trump in June 2015, who quickly rose to lead polls for the rest of the primary season with the exception of a period in the fall when neurosurgeon Ben Carson experienced a surge in support.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas won the Iowa caucuses, while Trump won the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries as well as the Nevada caucuses. On Super Tuesday, Trump and Cruz traded states with Trump receiving the plurality of the day's delegates. From March 16 to May 3, only three candidates remained in the race: Trump, Cruz, and Ohio Governor John Kasich. Cruz won four Western contests and won in Wisconsin, keeping open a credible path to denying Trump the nomination on first ballot with 1,237 delegates. Trump scored landslide victories in New York and five northeastern states in April, before taking every delegate in the Indiana primary on May 3. Without any further chances of forcing a contested convention, Cruz suspended his campaign.[3] Trump was declared the presumptive Republican nominee by Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus on May 3.[4] Kasich ended his campaign the following day.[5] After winning the Washington primary and gaining support from unbound North Dakota delegates on May 26,[6] Trump passed the threshold of 1,237 delegates required to guarantee his nomination.[7] By the end of the primary voting process, Trump had a commanding lead in the number of pledged delegates, ensuring a very smooth process for being declared the nominee. Trump received over 14 million votes, the most for any candidate in Republican primary history.[8] However, at 44.95%, Trump had the lowest percentage of the popular primary vote for a major party nominee since the 1988 Democratic Party presidential primaries.
On July 19, 2016, Trump and his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, were officially nominated as the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates at the Republican National Convention.[9] Trump and Pence defeated the Democratic ticket of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in the general election on November 8, 2016, despite the Democratic ticket consistently leading in polls.[10][11]
Timeline of the race[edit]
Background[edit]
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee, lost the 2012 election to incumbent Democratic president Barack Obama. The Republican National Committee, believing that the long, drawn-out 2012 primary season had politically and personally damaged Romney, drafted plans to condense the 2016 primary season. As part of these plans, the 2016 Republican National Convention was scheduled for the relatively early date of July 18–21, 2016,[75] the earliest date since Republicans nominated Thomas Dewey in June 1948.[76][77]
When John Kasich entered the race on July 21, 2015, the field reached 16 candidates,[78] making it the largest presidential field in the history of the Republican Party, surpassing the 1948 primaries. With Jim Gilmore's announcement to enter the race for a second time on July 30, 2015,[79] the field reached 17 candidates, becoming the largest presidential field in American history, surpassing the 16 candidates in the Democratic Party presidential primaries of 1972 and 1976.[80][81]
In mid-December 2014, Jeb Bush—widely seen as a possible frontrunner for the nomination due to his relatively moderate stances, record as former governor of a crucial swing state, name recognition and access to high-paying donors—was the first candidate to form a political action committee (PAC) and an exploratory committee.[82] Many other candidates followed suit. The first candidate to declare his candidacy was Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who was popular among grassroots conservatives due to his association with the Tea Party movement, and who also received early backing of several prominent Republican donors including Robert Mercer.[83][84]
The 2016 candidates were roughly divided into three camps. Grassroots conservatives were represented by Cruz and Carson, the Christian right was represented by Huckabee and Santorum. Moderates, or the establishment, were represented by Bush and Christie. Several—such as Rubio, Walker, and Kasich—were seen as having political backgrounds that may be appealing to both conservatives and moderates. Not all of these candidates clearly toed the grassroots/establishment divide. For instance, Rubio and Cruz were both elected to the Senate in the early 2010s as members of the Tea Party movement, but by 2015 had been courting the support of prominent party elders, political operatives, and large donors with significant success.[85][86][87]
Only three of the candidates, Carson, Trump and Fiorina, were true non-establishment candidates in the sense that they had no formal political experience. Fiorina is widely considered to have views in line with the establishment wing led by Bush and Christie.[88][89][87] Some called the diversity of candidates representing different wings of the party symptomatic of a struggle for the future direction of the party.[90]
The field was noted for its diversity, and was even called the most diverse presidential field in American history. It included two Latinos (Cruz and Rubio), a woman (Fiorina), an Indian-American (Jindal), and an African-American (Carson). Five were the children of immigrants: Cruz (Cuban father), Jindal (Indian parents), Rubio (Cuban parents), Santorum (Italian father) and Trump (Scottish mother).[91][92][93][94]
Overview[edit]
Widely viewed as a very open contest with no clear front-runner, potential candidates fluctuated in the polls for an extended period from late 2012 to the end of 2015. In the year prior to the election season, a total of 17 major candidates campaigned for the nomination, making it the single largest presidential primary field in American history at the time.[2] By the time the primary season started in early 2016, four candidates had clearly emerged ahead of the rest of the field: Ohio Governor John Kasich, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and New York businessman Donald Trump. Trump maintained wide poll leads throughout 2015 and into 2016, primarily due to his brash and unapologetic style of speaking and campaigning. Trump emphasized a disregard for political correctness, as well as populist and nativist policies. He earned the support of working-class voters and voters without college educations, among other demographics.[95][96][97]
Trump's brash attitude and polarizing policy stances generated numerous controversies in the media,[98] and many of the other candidates sought to become the "anti-Trump" candidate by condemning his rhetoric and policies. Senators Cruz and Rubio emphasized their youth in comparison to most other candidates and their possible appeal to Hispanic voters.[87][99][100] Ohio governor John Kasich, a moderate Republican, remained in the race for an extended period despite being viewed as having little to no chance of winning the nomination.[101]
Despite Trump's lead in most national polls, the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses were won by Cruz due to his support among grassroots conservatives. Trump rebounded with strong wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. On Super Tuesday, Trump expanded his lead by winning seven of the eleven states, while the Cruz campaign gained new energy with victories in Alaska, Oklahoma, and the significant stronghold of Cruz's home state Texas. Rubio maintained significant momentum with strong finishes in Iowa (third place), South Carolina (second place), and Nevada (second place), before finally claiming victory in Minnesota on Super Tuesday.
Between Super Tuesday and the beginning of the "winner-take-all" primaries, Cruz stayed nearly even with Trump, winning four states to Trump's five. Rubio won several smaller contests such as Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. In the first round of winner-take-all contests on March 15, Trump greatly expanded his lead by winning five of the six contests. After a significant loss to Trump in his home state of Florida, Rubio suspended[d] his campaign that same day. Meanwhile, Kasich finally gained some momentum by winning his home state of Ohio.
As the primary season entered the spring, the mostly-consolidated field resulted in a closing of the gap between Trump and Cruz, with Trump sweeping the South, the Northeast, and parts of the Midwest while Cruz performed strongly in the West and scored a surprise victory in Maine. Kasich, unable to win any other states besides Ohio, remained far behind in third place. After Cruz's upset win in Wisconsin, speculation began to arise that the convention would be a brokered one in which the establishment would choose Kasich or someone else, since both Trump and Cruz were not viewed favorably by the establishment.[102][103]
As April came to a close and Trump won a resounding victory in his home state of New York, both Cruz and Kasich were mathematically eliminated from winning the nomination without a brokered convention. Both men then formed an alliance to block Trump from winning the nomination, ahead of the "Acela primaries" of five Northeastern states on April 26.[104] Trump swept all five states and greatly increased his delegate lead. In a final push to block Trump's path to the nomination, Cruz announced that one of the former candidates for the nomination, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, would be his running mate if he was the nominee.[105]
After Trump won the Indiana primary on May 3, Cruz suspended his campaign,[3] leading to Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus announcing Trump as the presumptive nominee.[106] Kasich announced the suspension of his campaign the next day, leaving Trump as the only candidate left in the race. Trump then won all of the remaining primaries, sweeping the remainder of the West, Midwest and the entirety of the West Coast. With his victories in New Jersey and the remaining final states on June 7, Trump officially surpassed the necessary number of bound delegates, and broke the 2000 record of 12,034,676 popular votes received by the winner of the Republican presidential primaries,[107] with over 14 million votes.[19]
Related
National conventions
Presidential primaries