Downstate Illinois

[RINO Tom]

Downstate IL is classic rural midwest territory a la Missouri or Iowa.

Not sure what "classic rural" means, but Downstate Illinois has a lot more population than this forum likes to admit.  It's not a mostly rural region at all.

Chicagoland: 8,488,857
  - Chicago: 2,720,546
  - Cook Suburbs: 2,482,953
  - Collar Counties: 3,285,358
  - (The remaining population of the Chicago area is in either Wisconsin or Indiana)
Downstate Illinois: 4,312,682 (the cutoffs below are debatable, I think I used a state government map I found)
  - Northern Illinois: 1,182,137
  - Central Illinois: 1,921,129
  - Southern Illinois: 1,209,416

Here is how Downstate breaks down:

NORTHERN ILLINOIS: 1,182,137
  - Rockford: 339,376
  - Quad Cities (Illinois side): 209,794
  - Kankakee: 110,008
  - "Rural" Northern IL: 522,959 (44.24% of Northern IL)

CENTRAL ILLINOIS: 1,921,129
  - Galesburg: 68,316
  - Peoria: 376,246
  - Bloomington: 172,418
  - Champaign: 238,554
  - Springfield: 210,015
  - Danville: 78,111
  - Decatur: 106,550
  - "Rural" Central IL: 670,919 (34.92% of Central IL)

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS: 1,209,416
  - Metro East (St. Louis Suburbs): 600,315
  - Carbondale: 58,870
  - "Rural" Southern IL: 550,231 (45.50% of Southern IL)

Overall, the rural components of Downstate IL (522,959+670,919+550,231 = 1,744,109) account for 40% of the population.  Of course, I would consider many of those places (e.g., Galena) to definitely not be rural, but whatever.  Take away the Des Moines area, and I bet Iowa is more rural than Downstate Illinois (not to mention Downstate IL is more populous than the entire state of Iowa).  Take away KC and STL from Missouri, and I bet Missouri is more rural than Downstate IL.  Any time you literally take a state's biggest metro from it, it's going to be more rural, but why should that strange rule apply to only Illinois?  The non-major-metro parts of Illinois aren't as rural as the non-maor metro parts of surrounding states, IMO, especially when you consider the cultural influence being in a state with Chicago inevitably has on everyone in the state.

[RINO Tom]

^Tbf, Kirk underperforming in the downstate areas had to be expected, given the fact that he disavowed Trump and basically ran away from his own party (which was truly pathetic to watch). Her showing in the collars was bit more surprising, but I guess Kirk's debate gaffe and his awful campaign in general hurt him there as well. Plus, it was a presidential year, those areas are changing demographically, and ticket-splitting in blue states isn't really common anymore.

Still crazy though. She is a female Asian Chicagoland Democrat who only lost "Downstate" (in this definition, not Cook-DuPage-Will-Kane-Lake-DeKalb. I included McHenry and Kendall just because they were both won by Trump and Kirk.) by 207677 while Hillary lost it by 378994. That's a pretty big difference, even considering the gaffe and him running away from Trump. Look at Ayotte and Heck who also disavowed Trump. They didn't run behind him in Trump-friendly areas nearly this much. I guess it shouldn't be too surprising since this is probably more of an ancestral Democratic thing than anything really unique to Duckworth.

Not trying to be rude, but this seems inexplicably bizarre to me.  You're cutting two counties that are definitely part of Chicagoland out of your definition because they didn't vote the way you think they should?  Was DuPage not a part of the Chicago area until it voted for its first Democrat EVER in 2008?  LOL.  To make that cutoff even more arbitrary and foolish, 1,052,726 of Trump's 2,118,179 votes came from the Chicago area!  That's HALF.  There are MILLIONS of Republican voters in the Chicagoland area, the fact that there happen to be more Democratic ones does not cause these Republicans to cease to exist.  Whether they're losing the collar counties or winning them, those counties remain absolutely crutial to a Republican's vote total in Illinois, and to cut off two counties that don't fit the narrative is crazy.

Sorry, I know that wasn't the point of your post, it's just all-too-often assumed here that there aren't literally millions of Republican and Democratic voters who just happen to live in counties and metro areas and states that contain a tad bit more of their opposition.