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 County Results
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| Elections in Mississippi |
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The 1976 United States presidential election in Mississippi was held on November 2, 1976. The Democratic Party candidate Jimmy Carter won the state of Mississippi. He narrowly won the state with 49.56% of the vote, and all seven of the state's electors were pledged to Carter.[1]
In the 1972 election, Mississippi had Richard Nixon's strongest showing in the country, giving him 78% of the vote. Carter managed to carry Mississippi in 1976 by a slim margin of 1.88% against incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford. At that time, Carter’s performance in Mississippi was the narrowest victory for a post-Reconstruction Democratic presidential candidate, as he failed to win a majority of the vote. This was also the first time since 1848 that the state was decided by a single-digit margin.
While Carter performed well in northern Mississippi and in Black majority counties along the Mississippi River, President Ford’s wins in Hinds County (Jackson) and neighboring Rankin County, both of which were won with over sixty percent of the vote, along with a substantial win in Harrison County (Biloxi and Gulfport), kept the race in Mississippi extremely close.
As of the 2024 presidential election[update], this is the last time a Democrat won the state of Mississippi, as well as Hancock County, Neshoba County, DeSoto County, Carroll County, Covington County, Pearl River County, George County, Wayne County, Stone County, Greene County, Perry County, and Webster County.[2]
60% of white voters supported Ford while 36% supported Carter.[3][4]
- ^ "1976 Presidential General Election Results – Mississippi". Retrieved May 18, 2016.
- ^ Sullivan, Robert David; ‘How the Red and Blue Map Evolved Over the Past Century’; America Magazine in The National Catholic Review; June 29, 2016
- ^ Black & Black 1992, p. 295.
- ^ Black & Black 1992, p. 335.