Illinois will NOT trend heavily Republican

[RINO Tom]

The GOP gets back to its centre-right roots and boots out the Trumpists and Taliban-gelicals, which in turn will bring DuPage, Lake, and the northwestern Cook suburbs home.

That's not going to happen, sadly. Trumpism is the future of the GOP.

If the GOP loses bigly in 2018 and 2020, no it won't.

I honestly don't know for sure (I don't see how anyone can be certain about these things), but Trump wasn't just some Republican nominee who disappeared after the election.  He actually won the presidency, and I'm guessing that his stamp on the GOP will linger for awhile.  

I agree with you that no one can be certain about these things. With that said, I can see libertpaulian being proven right if Trumpism does in fact fall flat on its face next year and in 2020 (especially 2020). If Trump does go down in defeat by a large margin, I could see George W. Bush having more sway over the GOP in the 2020s than Trump, and that's saying something. Did Carter's stamp linger on the Democratic party through the 80s after he lost big in 1980? No.

Carter was a conservative southern democrat, the next Democratic president was also a centrist southern democrat...

Dukakis tried LBJ-ism, remember.

I don't think Carter was really a "conservative."

[RINO Tom]

I don't think Carter was really a "conservative."

Neither is Joe Manchin.

Agreed, and I have never said he was.

[RINO Tom]

Slow day at work, so I thought I would mess around with this.  These are what most consider the main "regions" of Illinois:

CHICAGOLAND: 8,488,857
Chicago: 2,704,958
Instate Suburbs: 5,783,899
- Cook Suburbs: 2,498,541
- Collar Counties: 3,285,358

DOWNSTATE ILLINOIS: 4,312,682
Northern Illinois: 1,182,137
Central Illinois: 1,921,129
Southern Illinois: 1,209,416
- Metro East (STL Suburbs): 600,315
- Other Southern Illinois: 609,101

In 2016, Clinton won the state 55.4%-39.4%.  Chicagoland voted like this (counties are in order of size):

Cook: 74.4% DEM, 21.4% GOP
DuPage: 53.9% DEM, 39.8% GOP
Lake: 57.3% DEM, 37.0% GOP
Will: 50.2% DEM, 44.6% GOP
Kane: 51.4% DEM, 42.4% GOP
McHenry: 50.7% GOP, 42.7% DEM
Kendall: 47.5% GOP, 46.0% DEM

As for the rest of the state, Clinton only won the following counties:

NORTHERN ILLINOIS
DeKalb: 47.8% DEM, 44.7% GOP (where Northern Illinois University is)
Rock Island: 51.2% DEM, 42.8% GOP (Illinois side of the Quad Cities ... fairly diverse and poor)

CENTRAL ILLINOIS
Peoria: 48.3% DEM, 45.6% GOP (high Black population)
Champaign: 55.7% DEM, 37.3% GOP (where the University of Illinois is)

SOUTHERN ILLINOIS
St. Clair: 50.5% DEM, 44.9% GOP (some very blue collar suburbs of St. Louis, including East St. Louis ... most of the nicer ones are north in Madison County)
Jackson: 47.4% DEM, 44.4% GOP (where Southern Illinois University is)

So, bad news for Republicans is that they seem to have mostly maxed out support in Downstate Illinois (though good GOP candidates often flip Peoria), and trends in the suburbs (the most populous region in the state) favor the Democrats right now ... I think a GOP that is competitive in Illinois is a GOP that has a more suburban coalition.  Of course, the GOP's coalition right now is much, much more suburban than the snobs on Atlas would allow the numbers to inform us, but I am talking a GOP that is almost as suburban as it was in the 1980s and 1990s.  There is a small bright spot for the GOP, though (besides the fact that, ya know, Democrats have ruined this state, but I digress); according to the Census, these were literally the only counties in the state that gained population between 2015 and 2016 (how they voted is colored):

Kendall (Chicagoland): +1.42%
Piatt (Central IL): +1.10%
Monroe (Southern IL, Metro East): +.52%
Johnson (Southern IL): +.51%
Will (Chicagoland): +.41%
Kane (Chicagoland): +.38%
Champaign (Central IL): +.33%
Stark (Central IL): +.21%
Jefferson (Southern IL): +.18%
Edwards (Southern IL): +.05%
Boone (Northern IL): +.02%
Cumberland (Central IL): +.01%

It's just one year and a lot of those counties are small, but it can't hurt ... the fastest growing areas in the Chicago area are actually the most Republican.

[RINO Tom]

Illinois swung D in 2016 despite it being Obama's home state. Only on Atlas would you find people who think it will soon be a Republican state, lol.

Atlas is full of nerds who dream of realignments because they read about them and think they'd be cool to *experience*.

[RINO Tom]

I think eventually the population of Illinois outside of Cook county and the collar counties will eventually overtake that of Cook and the collar counties. Once this happens, I think we'll start seeing Illinois trend Republican. By the way, I don't think this happening anytime soon but I do think it will eventually occur. 

Before I go into anything else.. I would like to ask:

Um... why would anyone want to move to downstate Illinois? lmao

There are plenty of nice places to live in Downstate Illinois...?

[RINO Tom]

I don't know. If North Dakota can be the fastest growing state, anything is possible.

yeah, lemme know when they strike oil in Peoria

I'm headed to Peoria this weekend, and I'm sure I'll have a great time just as I always do.

Screw you, haters!

[RINO Tom]

Illinois will become a more inelastic state but probably won't trend much either way. The only area that's really growing is the collar counties, though, which is where a lot of swing voters live. Chicago and downstate are actually losing population, I think.

If you look at how well Mark Kirk and Bruce Rauner did in suburban Cook and the collar counties, it's two pretty remarkable performances with unique circumstances that can't necessarily be repeated. Kirk wouldn't have done as well had it not been for the removal of Rod Blagojevich and the corrupt Dem nominee, Alexi Giannoulias. Rauner wouldn't have done as well here had it not been for the pension crisis, latent suburban mistrust of the Illinois Dems due to the aftermath of Blagojevich's conviction, and Quinn's horrifically terrible campaign. Neither would have done as well had both election years not been the Republican sweeps from sea to shining sea that they were.

If Illinois is to swing much in the long term, though, it probably swings Democratic as the suburbs are clearly getting bluer. It is harder to see Republicans pulling 60% in suburbs like Palatine like Mark Kirk did in 2010.

As a group/region, this is largely true.  However, the inner Collar Counties have actually lost population recently while multiple counties Downstate (including Champaign and some of the "exurbs" of Peoria) have actually gained.

[RINO Tom]

I honestly do believe that Illinois could potentially vote as heavily Democratic as California in 2020. By a 30 point margin!

Your IL theory might be correct, but your NH one is horse hooey.

Both states will be titanium Democratic in the 2020s!

One thing I worry about now is that Pritzker seems like a walking time bomb and Biss would have such a large financial disadvantage that Rauner could either come close or win. This entire site would proceed to say Illinois will trend solidly GOP in 2020 because Hillary wont have this "home state" advantage. lmao.

Get a new hobby, dude.  It's weird.

[RINO Tom]

Hey guys! Look how Illinois sticks out like a sore thumb in the rust belt in this regards.

And?  White men WITH college degrees are very Republican, too...