Man, 2016 felt like a fever dream, didn't it? Honestly, looking back at the presidential candidates 2016 list, it’s wild to see how many names we’ve already pushed to the back of our brains. We all remember the big showdown—the hats, the emails, the "nasty woman" comments—but the actual roster of people who thought they could lead the free world was massive. It wasn't just Trump and Hillary. Not even close.
It was a year where a neurosurgeon, a socialist from Vermont, and a guy who literally climbed Mount Everest all shared the same cultural oxygen.
If you’re trying to remember who else was on that ballot, or why your cousin was so obsessed with a guy named Gary Johnson, you're in the right place. The 2016 election didn't just change the president; it basically broke the old way of doing politics and replaced it with... well, whatever this is now.
The Republican Side: A Massive Crowd and One Huge Upset
The GOP field was basically a "who’s who" of the party establishment, until it wasn't. You had seventeen major candidates at the start. Seventeen! It was so crowded they had to have "kids' table" debates for the people polling at 1%.
Think about the names on that presidential candidates 2016 list for a second. You had Jeb Bush, the heir apparent with a massive war chest, who ended up asking a room to "please clap." You had Ted Cruz, the firebrand senator from Texas who actually lasted the longest against Trump. Then there was Marco Rubio, the "Saviour of the GOP" (according to Time Magazine), who got stuck in a glitch during a debate and repeated the same sentence four times.
Here’s the thing people forget: for a long time, Trump wasn't the "inevitable" choice.
- John Kasich: The Ohio Governor who stayed in until the bitter end, hoping for a contested convention.
- Ben Carson: A world-renowned neurosurgeon who had a weirdly calm vibe and once got lost on his way to the debate stage.
- Chris Christie: The New Jersey Governor who basically nuked Rubio’s campaign in one night and then became one of the first establishment guys to back Trump.
- Carly Fiorina: The former HP CEO who was the only woman in the Republican field.
- Rand Paul: The libertarian-leaning senator who brought a very different flavor to the foreign policy debates.
It was a bloodbath. Trump didn't just win; he dismantled these people. He gave them nicknames—"Low Energy Jeb," "Lyin' Ted," "Little Marco"—and suddenly, decades of political experience didn't matter as much as a sharp tweet.
The Democratic Battle: Hillary vs. The Revolution
On the flip side, the Democrats started with a much shorter presidential candidates 2016 list. It was supposed to be a coronation for Hillary Clinton. She had the name, the experience, and the DNC behind her.
But then Bernie Sanders happened.
Bernie wasn't even a Democrat; he was an Independent from Vermont with messy hair and a thick Brooklyn accent talking about "the top one-tenth of one percent." Nobody expected him to win a single state. Instead, he won 22 of them. He turned the primary into a long, grinding war of ideas that pushed the party significantly to the left.
The other guys? They barely made a dent. Martin O’Malley, the former Governor of Maryland, looked like a president from a TV show but couldn't get past 1% in the polls. Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb dropped out so early most people didn't even realize they’d started.
The Third-Party Factors: Gary, Jill, and Evan
If you really want to understand why 2016 went the way it did, you have to look at the people who weren't in the two main parties. This is where the presidential candidates 2016 list gets really interesting—and controversial.
Gary Johnson, the Libertarian, was a former Governor of New Mexico. He was actually pulling double digits in some polls. He was the "cool" candidate for people who hated both Trump and Hillary. But then he had the "What is Aleppo?" moment on national TV, and his momentum kinda stalled. Still, he pulled over 4 million votes. That's a lot of people.
Then you had Jill Stein with the Green Party. People still argue about her to this day. In states like Michigan and Wisconsin, her vote count was actually higher than the margin between Trump and Clinton. Democrats often call her a "spoiler," while her supporters say she was the only one actually talking about the environment and student debt.
Don't forget Evan McMullin. He was the "Never Trump" Republican who ran as an independent. He didn't do much nationally, but he almost won Utah! A guy who wasn't even on the ballot in half the states almost took an entire state’s electoral votes.
The Final Tallies: By the Numbers
When it all shook out on November 8, the map looked nothing like the experts predicted. Hillary won the popular vote by nearly 2.9 million—that's a fact. But Trump won the Electoral College 304 to 227.
The presidential candidates 2016 list in the general election ended up like this:
- Donald Trump (R): 62,984,828 votes
- Hillary Clinton (D): 65,853,514 votes
- Gary Johnson (L): 4,489,235 votes
- Jill Stein (G): 1,457,222 votes
- Evan McMullin (I): 732,273 votes
Basically, about 6% of the country voted for someone other than the big two. In a race decided by about 80,000 votes across three states, those "minor" candidates were a massive deal.
Why We’re Still Talking About This
The 2016 list matters because it was the moment the "gatekeepers" lost control. Before 2016, you couldn't just insult your way to the nomination. You couldn't run as a socialist and almost win.
The candidates who didn't win—Bernie, Ted Cruz, even Jill Stein—they all left a mark on how we talk about healthcare, trade, and the "establishment." We’re still living in the world they built during those chaotic eighteen months.
If you’re looking to dig deeper into how these specific people changed the landscape, your best bet is to look at the official FEC filings or the archives at the American Presidency Project. They have the raw data on every single person who filed—even the ones who only got 12 votes from their neighbors.
To really get a feel for the impact of that 2016 roster, try this:
- Compare the 2016 platforms of the top five candidates on trade. You'll see that Trump and Bernie actually agreed on more than you’d think.
- Look at the swing state margins versus the Jill Stein/Gary Johnson vote counts. It’ll give you a whole new perspective on the phrase "every vote counts."
- Check out the post-election memoirs (like Clinton’s What Happened or even Ben Carson’s later writings) to see how the candidates themselves viewed that wild ride.
The 2016 election wasn't just a vote; it was a total system reboot. And the people on that list were the ones who pulled the plug.