Clinton won Maryland with 60.3% of the vote, while Trump received 33.9%.[3] Maryland was among the eleven states (and the District of Columbia) in which Clinton improved on Barack Obama's 2012 raw vote total, although by just 84 votes.[4] Maryland was one of four states in which Clinton received over 60% of the vote, the others being Massachusetts, Hawaii, and California. However, Maryland was the only one of those eleven states to have voted more Democratic in both 2012 and 2016. In this election, Maryland voted 24.32% to the left of the nation at-large.[5]
Clinton continued the tradition of Democratic dominance in the state of Maryland, capturing large majorities of the vote in the densely populated and heavily nonwhite Democratic Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area, while Trump easily outperformed her in more white, sparsely populated regions elsewhere in the state that tend to vote Republican. While Republicans typically win more counties, they are usually swamped by the heavily Democratic counties between Baltimore and Washington. Though Trump won 17 of Maryland's 24 county-level jurisdictions, the state's four largest county-level jurisdictions—Montgomery, Prince George's and Baltimore counties and the City of Baltimore—all broke for Clinton by double digits, enough to deliver the state to her.
The incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, a Democrat and former U.S. Senator from Illinois, was first elected president in the 2008 election, running with former Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. Defeating the Republican nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona, with 52.9% of the popular vote and 68% of the electoral vote,[6][7] Obama succeeded two-term Republican President George W. Bush, the former Governor of Texas. Obama and Biden were reelected in the 2012 presidential election, defeating former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with 51.1% of the popular vote and 61.7% of electoral votes.[8] Although Barack Obama's approval rating in the RealClearPolitics poll tracking average remained between 40 and 50% for most of his second term, it has experienced a surge in early 2016 and reached its highest point since 2012 during June of that year.[9][10] Analyst Nate Cohn has noted that a strong approval rating for Barack Obama would equate to a strong performance for the Democratic candidate, and vice versa.[11]
Following his second term, President Barack Obama was not eligible for another reelection. In October 2015, Obama's running-mate and two-term Vice President Joe Biden decided not to enter the race for the Democratic presidential nomination either.[12] With their terms expiring on January 20, 2017, the electorate was asked to elect a new president, the 45th president and 48th vice president of the United States, respectively.
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Government
