New Mexico was won by incumbent United States President Bill Clinton of Arkansas, who was running against Kansas Senator Bob Dole.

Clinton ran a second time with former Tennessee Senator Al Gore as Vice President, and Dole ran with former New York Congressman Jack Kemp.

[1] New Mexico weighed in for this election as 1% more Republican than the national average.

The presidential election of 1996 was a very multi-partisan election for New Mexico, with nearly ten percent of the electorate voting for third-party candidates, and two third-party candidates receiving more than 1% of the vote.

In his second bid for the presidency, Ross Perot led the newly reformed Reform Party to gain over five percent of the votes in New Mexico, and to pull in support nationally as the most popular third-party candidate to run for United States Presidency in recent times.