Describe your county's political/demographic history

[Mr. Illini]

My home county is Lake County, IL.



Lake County is one of the "collar counties" to Chicago's Cook County. It encompasses much of Chicago's northern and some northwest suburbs. In the southeastern portion of the county lies the northern half of Chicago's North Shore, a line of wealthy, white, heavily-Jewish suburbs along the Lake Michigan shores. Some wealthy towns also sit inland in south-central Lake County, such as Libertyville, Vernon Hills, and Lincolnshire. In the northeastern half sits the City of Waukegan, a large, historic, Hispanic-heavy suburb. Great Lakes Naval Base also sits near there. In the south and northwestern portions of the county are predominately white, middle class, northwestern suburbs such as Lake Zurich, Wauconda, Lake Villa, and Antioch.

Lake County does and has for a long time held the reputation of being a swing county. The area along Lake Michigan shores tends to be very liberal, with wealthy liberal towns along the southeastern shore and minority-heavy towns along the northeastern shore. The exception to this is Lake Forest, a more old-school, traditional type of wealthy town, which votes heavily Republican. Inland, Lincolnshire and Vernon Hills lean Democrat as rapidly-developing, fairly wealthy areas, while Libertyville, a historic town that preexists much of the county, is Republican. Grayslake, Round Lake and Mundelein, tend to be more Democratic middle-class towns while Lake Zurich, Wauconda, and Lake Villa lean to the right.

Voting trends of the county has changed in the last few decades as the parties themselves change. One long-term trend that is evident is that Lake County is more Democrat-voting than western-suburban DuPage and McHenry Counties, long-time Republican-voting suburbs.

In Presidential elections, Lake County has almost always been a Republican-leaning swing county. Lake County voted for Johnson in '64, strongly for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush, for Clinton, narrowly for Bush in '00, more convincingly in '04, and then twice for Obama.

Last 5:

2012 President

Barack Obama (D) 53%
Mitt Romney (R) 45%

2008 President

Barack Obama (D) 59%
John McCain (R) 40%

2004 President

George Bush (R) 51%
John Kerry (D) 49%

2000 President

George Bush (R) 50%
Al Gore 48%

1996 President

Bill Clinton (D) over Robert Dole (R)

On the state level, Lake County is similarly swingy. The county voted Republican for Governor in 1998 and 2002 along with the rest of the suburbs, but for Blagojevich in 2006. Like most of the state, it swing back to the Republicans in 2010.

Last 5:

2010 Governor

Brady (R) 50%
Quinn (D) 42%

2006 Governor

Blagojevich (D) 46%
Topinka (R) 42%

2002 Governor

Ryan (R) 53%
Blagojevich (D) 44%

1998 Governor

Ryan (R) over Poshard (D)

1994 Governor

Edgar (R) over Netsch (D)

Lake County has been trending Democrat in recent years. This is, by my analysis, is a result of the strong moderate Republican presence along the North Shore and their frustration with the modern GOP and the Tea Party. This is consistent with many suburbs across the country, and has been even more noticeable here.

[Mr. Illini]

The county where I go to school is Champaign County, IL



Champaign County is a large, rectangular county in East Central Illinois. Surrounded by (and including some of) the most conservative area of the state, Champaign is often a Democrat island surrounded by deep Republican counties. Champaign County is home to Champaign-Urbana, a micro-urban community of about 140,000. The heart of the community is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the state's flagship university. The university accounts for a good portion of employment in the area; outside of that the community is primarily manufacturing. The cities lack suburbs because of their size and also the nature of the cities economies. Savoy, however, is a small town just to the south that acts as a sort of suburb. Rantoul, a town of 13,000, is also in the county. Outside of the four towns mentioned, there exists a few small towns and much farmland.

Politically, Champaign-Urbana is Democrat-voting. The university is predictably Democrat, and much of the remainder of the community is working-class, often minority, micro-urban Democrat. Urbana is notoriously more liberal than Champaign, and parts of Champaign away from Urbana are much more likely to vote Republican than similarly placed parts of Urbana. Rantoul is also a Democrat-voting area. Outside of these areas, the county is acts as the counties around it - very heavily Republican. The county could be considered generally a likely-Democrat county in most elections, with the remainder being situations in which the rural Republican vote plus a wave of Champaign Republican voters can tip the county in elections that favor the Republican state-wide. The county has become increasingly Democrat in recent years.

It is not unusual for Champaign County to be the only Democrat-voting county in many miles, even with other micro-urban communities nearby (such as Bloomington-Normal and Springfield), as those have also trended R. Champaign County is considered to be the most liberal county in central Illinois, and Champaign-Urbana is considered to be the most liberal area in the central portion of the state.

For President, the county has not voted for a Republican since 1988, when it cast its ballot for George Bush.

Last 5 President:

2012 President

Barack Obama (D) 53%
Mitt Romney (R) 45%

2008 President

Barack Obama (D) 58%
Mitt Romney 40%

2004 President

John Kerry (D) 50%
George Bush (R) 48%

2000 President

Al Gore (D) 48%
George Bush (R) 47%

1996 President

Bill Clinton (D) over Robert Dole (R)

For state-wide elections, this county is more likely to vote Republican. This is likely due to smaller turnout in non-Presidential elections from U of I students.

Last 5 Governor:

2010 Governor

Bill Brady (R) 55%
Pat Quinn (D) 39%

2006 Governor

Judy Baar Topinka (R) 53%
Rod Blagojevich (D) 29%
Rich Whitney (G) 17%

2002 Governor

George Ryan (R) 52%
Rod Blagojevich (D) 44%

1998 Governor

George Ryan (R) over Glenn Poshard (D)

1994 Governor

Jim Edgar (R) over Dawn Netsch