Why did Illinois trend Democratic?

[AGA]

All the other states in the midwest trended Republican except Kansas. Also, Obama was not running this time. Why did it trend Democratic?

[muon2]

In 2012 IL gave 57.5% to Obama statewide and 73.9% in Cook county. Romney got 40.7% statewide and 24.6% in Cook.

In 2016 IL gave 55.4% to Clinton statewide and 74.4% in Cook, while Trump got 39.4% statewide and 24.4% in Cook (AP unofficial). The statewide Dem margin went from 16.8% to 16.0% so both parties dropped and there was a slight Pub trend overall.

In state races the Dems carried the comptroller by 49.0% to 44.9% so the Dems did not do as well as the top of the ticket there. Similarly the Pubs picked up 4 house seats and 2 senate seats, basically outside of metro Chicago. IL-10 shifted to the Dems, but that was a reflection of the neverTrump vote in the northern suburbs as Bost won convincingly in southern IL where Trump was strongest.

Overall I would not say that IL trended Dem. I would say that Chicagoland slightly trended more Dem due to anti-Trump sentiment as the rest of the state went decidedly more Pub.

[RINO Tom]

Percent urban by state:

88.5% - Illinois
78.7% - Pennsylvania
77.9% - Ohio
74.6% - Michigan
74.2% - Kansas
73.3% - Minnesota
73.1% - Nebraska
72.4% - Indiana
70.4% - Missouri
70.2% - Wisconsin
64.0% - Iowa
59.9% - North Dakota
56.7% - South Dakota

So Illinois is both (A) more urban overall compared to other Midwestern states (and, in general, other states where Trump made major gains over Romney) and (B) has one of the highest proportions of people living in its largest metro area of any state, with over one-fifth of its population living in Chicago proper alone.

And of course Chicago is also a very large city - a "world city" in a sense in which no other major metro in the Midwest approaches. Not Minneapolis, not Detroit, not Cleveland, and not St. Louis. I think that we're likely to see some interesting statistical work over the next few weeks with regard to the correlation between metro size and propensity to vote for Clinton over Trump (which is partially mediated by other factors, obviously: education, race and ethnicity, immigration, income, employment, population density, etc.).

Define "urban."  For the purposes of your correlation, for example, Trump won the suburban vote according to exit polls, so are they urban?  Using that percent, they'd have to be.  Is Peoria (~400k metro) "urban"?  Because a large percent of their metro is ruby red exurban communities.

[justfollowingtheelections]

All the other states in the midwest trended Republican except Kansas. Also, Obama was not running this time. Why did it trend Democratic?

I'm guessing that Hillary being from Chicago was a factor.

[Illiniwek]

Almost every DuPage County Republican I knew did not vote for trump.

[RINO Tom]

I'm using the Census Bureau's definition, with which most posters here should be familiar.

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I think it would be pretty difficult to come up with a plausible definition of "urban" that doesn't include a larger share of Illinois' population compared to other Midwestern states.

That's true, but Illinois is not 80% urban if you distinguish urban vs. suburban, and that would very seriously affect the correlation between being "urban" and voting Democrat.  Illinois' "urbanness" compared to other states isn't relevant in that distinction.

[RINO Tom]

I'm using the Census Bureau's definition, with which most posters here should be familiar.

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I think it would be pretty difficult to come up with a plausible definition of "urban" that doesn't include a larger share of Illinois' population compared to other Midwestern states.

That's true, but Illinois is not 80% urban if you distinguish urban vs. suburban, and that would very seriously affect the correlation between being "urban" and voting Democrat.  Illinois' "urbanness" compared to other states isn't relevant in that distinction.

Urban areas, all together, went heavily for Clinton.  Suburban areas, all together, leaned Trump.  I'm just saying if that's all counted as "urban" (as it would have to be in your statistic, as the actual city of Chicago is only 3 million out of the state's 13 million), you're talking about both a type of area that leans Dem and one that leans Republican; there's nothing urban about Crystal Lake, IL.

[Green Line]

Mostly thanks to me and my like minded Republicans.  You're welcome.

[Nym90]

It is not unusual for incumbent Presidents to have significantly less home-state advantage when running for reelection then when running for first election, and Obama was no exception. It's still unusual that Clinton actually outperformed Obama relative to the national average in Illinois though.

Maybe she had some pseudo home-state advantage due to having been from Illinois originally (sorta like Obama's pseudo home-state advantage in Hawaii).