The 1996 United States presidential election in North Carolina took place on 5 November 1996 as part of the
1996 United States presidential election
The 1996 United States presidential election was the 53rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1996. Incumbent Democratic President Bill Clinton defeated former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the Republican nominee ...
Senator
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
Bob Dole
Robert Joseph Dole (July 22, 1923 – December 5, 2021) was an American politician and attorney who represented Kansas in the United States Senate from 1969 to 1996. He was the Republican Leader of the Senate during the final 11 years of his te ...
Democratic
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
PresidentBill Clinton of Arkansas. Dole won with a plurality of 48.73% of the vote to Clinton's 44.04%, a margin of 4.69%. The Reform Party candidate, billionaire businessman
Ross Perot
Henry Ross Perot (; June 27, 1930 – July 9, 2019) was an American business magnate, billionaire, politician and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive officer of Electronic Data Systems and Perot Systems. He ran an inde ...
, came in a distant third, with 6.68%.
In
1992
File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...
, Clinton became the first Democrat to win the White House without carrying North Carolina since the founding of the Republican Party and the only Democrat to ever secure two terms in office without North Carolina. Although the state remained competitive in 1996, Dole improved non-trivially on George H. W. Bush's margin on his way to becoming the second losing Republican to carry the state, reflecting the state's increasingly Republican orientation. Much of Dole's strength came from wins in large counties anchored by, or adjoining, an urban area. He flipped Wake County, home of Raleigh and the largest county in the nation he flipped outside California, carrying it by 2.3%. His top two raw vote margins in the state came from
Gaston County
Gaston County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 227,943. The county seat is Gastonia. Dallas served as the original county seat from 1846 until 1911.
Gaston County is included in the C ...
, a suburban county adjoining Mecklenburg County (home of Charlotte), and Forsyth County, home of Winston-Salem; in the latter, he increased Bush's '92 margin of 3.2% to 11.3%. He also shrank Bill Clinton's margin in Guilford County, home of Greensboro, from 4.2% to 1.0%. (Clinton did, however, flip Mecklenburg County itself.)
, this is the last election in which the following counties have voted for a Democratic presidential candidate:
Camden
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Franklin
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,
Haywood Haywood may refer to:
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* Haywood, Manitoba
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* Haywood, Herefordshire
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* Little Haywood, Staffordshire
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* Hayward, California, formerly Haywood
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* Haywood, ...
,
Jones
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,
Madison Madison may refer to:
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* James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States
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Perquimans
Perquimans County () , from the North Carolina Collection's website at the
Swain
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* Swain Islands, Antarctica
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* Swain County, North Carolina, United States
* Swains ...
Technically the voters of North Carolina cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. North Carolina was allocated 14 electors because it had 12
congressional districts
Congressional districts, also known as electoral districts and legislative districts, electorates, or wards in other nations, are divisions of a larger administrative region that represent the population of a region in the larger congressional bod ...
and 2 senators. All candidates that appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 14 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 14 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.
The following were the members of the Electoral College from the state. All were pledged to and voted for Bob Dole and Jack Kemp:
# Howard B. Smith
# Bettie West
# J.D. Teachey
#
Nelson Dollar
Joseph Nelson Dollar (born June 5, 1961) is a former Republican member of the North Carolina General Assembly representing the State's 36th House district. The district includes constituents from the towns of Cary, Apex and Swift Creek in Wake
...
# Lee Q. McMillan
# Carolyn McGee
# Jim Cole
# Tom Dwiggins
# John Van Hanford
# Gary Whitener
# George Alexander Jones
# Quentine Finch
# Bill Graham
# Dorothy Bursey
1996
File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...