Could a democrat win a statewide election in Illinois with only Cook County?
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  Could a democrat win a statewide election in Illinois with only Cook County?
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Author Topic: Could a democrat win a statewide election in Illinois with only Cook County?  (Read 1277 times)
Happpyindy
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« on: November 22, 2020, 06:47:50 PM »

I think it’s possible, though not really likely.
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MT Treasurer
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« Reply #1 on: November 22, 2020, 07:00:09 PM »

At this point, I think coalitions have shifted too much + demographic changes and generational turnover have upended traditional R pathways in IL to such an extent that I don’t see how any Republican can recreate Rauner's map (not just in terms of the margins, but also the county wins themselves). It’s hard to conceive such a scenario now, but the next Republican to win IL will probably break at least 35% in Cook but still lose DuPage and Lake narrowly (and likely two other counties or so as well — Rock Island and Champaign?). Chicago would likely need to lose population at a faster rate than it currently is for this to happen, though.
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neostassenite31
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« Reply #2 on: November 22, 2020, 08:36:31 PM »

As mentioned above the correlation in margins between Cook and its collar counties (especially Lake and DuPage) are much higher now than what it was 1-2 decades ago. Generally 70% in Cook is the standard metric for desired performance by IL Dems nowadays. A one-county win might only be feasible in a really odd turnout scenario downstate 
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crazy jimmie
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« Reply #3 on: November 23, 2020, 02:15:12 AM »

At this point, I think coalitions have shifted too much + demographic changes and generational turnover have upended traditional R pathways in IL to such an extent that I don’t see how any Republican can recreate Rauner's map (not just in terms of the margins, but also the county wins themselves). It’s hard to conceive such a scenario now, but the next Republican to win IL will probably break at least 35% in Cook but still lose DuPage and Lake narrowly (and likely two other counties or so as well — Rock Island and Champaign?). Chicago would likely need to lose population at a faster rate than it currently is for this to happen, though.

In the event of a statewide GOP win Rock Island probably votes GOP.
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kwabbit
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« Reply #4 on: November 23, 2020, 12:34:36 PM »

At this point, I think coalitions have shifted too much + demographic changes and generational turnover have upended traditional R pathways in IL to such an extent that I don’t see how any Republican can recreate Rauner's map (not just in terms of the margins, but also the county wins themselves). It’s hard to conceive such a scenario now, but the next Republican to win IL will probably break at least 35% in Cook but still lose DuPage and Lake narrowly (and likely two other counties or so as well — Rock Island and Champaign?). Chicago would likely need to lose population at a faster rate than it currently is for this to happen, though.
In a hypothetical where the Dem wins by one vote statewide, I still think DuPage votes Republican. Lake and Champaign would be within a few points but they would vote D.
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RINO Tom
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« Reply #5 on: November 23, 2020, 01:29:54 PM »
« Edited: November 23, 2020, 02:28:14 PM by RINO Tom »

At this point, I think coalitions have shifted too much + demographic changes and generational turnover have upended traditional R pathways in IL to such an extent that I don’t see how any Republican can recreate Rauner's map (not just in terms of the margins, but also the county wins themselves). It’s hard to conceive such a scenario now, but the next Republican to win IL will probably break at least 35% in Cook but still lose DuPage and Lake narrowly (and likely two other counties or so as well — Rock Island and Champaign?). Chicago would likely need to lose population at a faster rate than it currently is for this to happen, though.

I know you are of the belief that Democratic gains among "upscale suburban voters" will practically continue indefinitely, but come on ... a Republican winning Illinois is VERY clearly winning DuPage.  If Pritzker were to lose in 2022, there is quite literally zero chance he goes down while carrying DuPage.  You can question if a Republican can even win IL at all, but for God's sake, DuPage still votes WAY to the right of the state locally, and Lake does less so:

2018 GOVERNOR'S ELECTION
Illinois: 54.5% DEM, 38.8% GOP
DuPage: 48.4% DEM, 46.1% GOP
Lake: 51.3% DEM, 43.6% GOP

The only two counties to vote to the left of the state as a whole were Cook and Champaign.  DuPage voted 13.4% to the right of the state, being more Republican than Peoria, rural Fulton County, Rock Island, and the Southern Illinois counties of St. Clair (East St. Louis), Jackson and Alexander.  Even if the expected Downstate backlash against Pritzker happens in two years, that doesn't change the fact that there is zero path to victory for a Republican to win statewide without DuPage and, likely, every other suburban county, as well, with the possible exception of Lake.

DuPage DID vote 2.4% to the left of the state in the 2020 election, but I would argue that local elections are quite different than national ones, especially in solid blue states like Illinois; even in 2020, DuPage was less Democratic than Champaign, insinuating at least Champaign would hold out longer.  Again, if you want to say that Republicans cannot win DuPage County anymore, fine ... then I think you're arguing Republicans will never win Illinois again.  I just don't think the math is there for a Republican to be elected statewide without winning DuPage.
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Gracile
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« Reply #6 on: November 23, 2020, 04:47:01 PM »


This thread is very clearly about federal/presidential politics given the board, though, so all you're saying about DuPage/Lake voting massively to the right of the state in gubernatorial elections doesn't hold much relevance here. Obviously, local politics are prone to producing divergences from the federal level, but you can't really compare the performance of someone like Bruce Rauner to a federal Republican.

----

To answer the question, I think a federal Democrat is guaranteed to win Champaign and Lake in addition to Cook at the bare minimum in the foreseeable future.
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MT Treasurer
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« Reply #7 on: November 23, 2020, 05:23:10 PM »

I only used Bruce Rauner's map as an example because that was the only recent race in which the Democrat ended up losing all non-Cook counties. Such a map obviously can’t be replicated at the federal level, regardless of how poorly someone like Pritzker would fare in the collar counties in 2022 (not that I think he’s particularly vulnerable — even a ‘local’ Republican wouldn’t win those counties by nearly as much as Rauner in 2014, even if the R collapse there isn’t comparable to places like NoVA/the Atlanta suburbs). My point was more that Republicans will have to improve over Rauner's 33.3% showing in Cook to win statewide again, especially at the federal level.
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forsythvoter
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« Reply #8 on: November 23, 2020, 10:39:04 PM »

If the trends we saw this year at the national level continue (Rs doing better among minority voters / WWC and Ds doing better among high-education suburbanites), I could see a scenario where Democrats in IL need to rely on wins in DuPage and Lake to win statewide because their Cook margins compress a bit and downstate goes hyper Republican.
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