A Graphic Anatomy of Victory: Illinois (w/maps)

This is the ninth in a series of diaries depicting the Democratic victory in this year's midterm elections. Other diaries in this series can be seen here.

Already covered have been New England, NY, NJ, MD, and DE, PA, OH, IN, MI, and Wisconsin.

Today's diary will focus on Illinois. As always first

up are the seat control maps, no seats changed hands in Illinois.

Illinois

Chicago Metro Area

Of the 3,453,132 votes cast in the 2006 US House races in

Wisconsin,  1,986,431  votes (57.5%) were cast for Democratic candidates, while 1,443,076 votes (41.8%) were cast for Republicans.  Including unopposed races that Democrats had an 15.7% vote total advantage, a 3.9% improvement over 2004.  

2006 Vote Margins



The deepest blue indicates a Democratic vote share over 60%, medium blue 55-60%, light blue 50-55%, pink 45-50%, medium red 40-45%, deep red 40% or less.

As is clear from the map Cook county (Chicago) is both a Democratic powerhouse, and is not clear Cook County is by far the most populous county in the state.  With 2,710,118 registered voters, Cook County is home to over 1/3rd (36.7%) of registred voters in Illinois. Expanding to the full Chicago MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area, includes Cook, DeKalb, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kendall, Lake, McHenry, and Will counties) the Chicago area is home to 4,530,906 voters, or 61.4% of the state's

registered voters. Excluding the Chicago area, Illinois bears a strong resemblance to Ohio and Indiana, with Republican areas in the center of the state, and ancestral Democratic districts in the southern part of the state.

The two closest races in the state were located in Chicago's northwestern suburbs. In the closest race, the IL-06, Republican Peter Roskam scored a narrow  4,810 vote margin (2.7% ) over Iraq war vet Tammy Duckworth. In the IL-10, Democrat Dan Seals was defeated by Republican incumbent Mark Kirk by  14,731 vote margin (6.8%).  

Turning to vote shar gainse between the 2004 and 2006 elections, the IL-10 saw the Democratic vote share surge.

2006 Vote Gains



The deepest blue indicates a Democratic vote gain of over 10%, medium blue 5-10%, light blue 0-5%, pink 0 to 5%, medium red 5 to 10%, deep red 10% or less.

The IL-02 and IL-12 are both grayed out because in one of the two years the district was uncontested. Again, the most impressive Democratic vote gain was in the IL-10 where the Democratic vote share rose from 35.7% in 2004 to 46.6%.  As well, Democrats in both the IL-14 and IL-18 saw the Democratic vote share rise by 6.8%, with Democratic candidates raising vote totals from the low

30's in 2004 to just around 40% this year. In general, while the Chicago area is largely a static area as Democratic vote shares top out as the area has been transformed to a Democratic stronghold, downstate and in the river counties there is a still a large potential for growth.

As a result of this dynamic, further gains in the Chicago area will likely come from get out the vote campaigns, while downstate populist economic messages might offer the potential to convert rural Republicans worried about the exodus of factory jobs that have hit the state.

Looking at differences in turnout between 2004 and 2006, something very important about the Chicago area emerges.

2004



2006




These maps show deviation from statewide turnout. The deepest blue indicates a turnout of 10% or more over the state average, medium blue 5-10%, light blue 0-5%, pink 0 to-5%, medium red 5 to 10%, deep red -10% or less of the statewide turnout average.

Statewide turnout in the 2006 election was 48.6%, a 22.7% drop off from the 2004 turnout at 71.6%.  The most obvious change between the two years comes in the Chicago area with turnout in Cook County and neighoring DuPage and Will counties turnout dropping by more than a quarter. With victory in the Chicago are largely falling to the effectiveness of campaigns in turning out the vote, this augurs well for Democratic opponents in the IL-06 and IL-10 in 2008.  As turnout in these counties increases due to the presidential election in 2008, Democrats downticket in the Chicago area stand to benefit.  Looking at this another way, below I've created a map that demonstrates the midterm dropoff.

Midterm dropoff

Shading indicates deviation from 2006 statewide dropoff of 22.7% from 2004 election. The deepest blue indicates a dropoff of 10% or more over the state average, medium blue 5-10%, light blue 0-5%, pink 0 to-5%, medium red 5 to 10%, deep red -10% or less  

On this map, the more blue the county is shaded the less variation in turnout between 2004 and 2006.  More so than the other maps this shows the magnitude of the midterm dropoff effect in the Chicago area.  While turnout in Chicago are dropped by more than a quarter, downstate while turnout did drop, it did so only by about 10%.  Thus, the biggest driver behind the midterm effect in Illinois was the Chicago region.  Basically, what emerges is a divide between urban Chicago where turnout determines who wins elections, while downstate victory will depend on the ability of Democrats to win over enough Republican voters to overcome the slight Republican lean of much of the region. Using the vote share totals from the Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Treasurer races, I've created a measure of base Democratic performnace,which I've mapped below.

The deepest blue indicates a base Democratic vote share over 60%, medium blue 55-60%, light blue 50-55%, pink 45-50%, medium red 40-45%, deep red 40% or less.

Top 5 Democrat Counties

County        % DEM  Region

Cook        74.6%  Chicago

Gallatin    68.0%  Southern

Calhoun        65.0%  Western

Rock Island    64.5%  Western

Alexander    64.1%  Southern

Bottom 5 Democrat Counties        

County        % DEM  Region

Ford        31.5%    Central

Iroquios    33.4%   Central

Livingston        34.2%    Central

Woodford    35.0%   Central

McClean        39.6%   Central

Again, Cook County emerges as the deepest blue part of the state.  Other areas of Democratic strenght can be found in the Rock Island, East St Louis, and Cairo areas. Republican strenth is concentrated in the east central area of the state, with most of the red areas of the state being competitive.  Slightly more than 5% of Illinois voters live in counties where Republicans, as measured by base partisanship, constitute more than 55% of the electorate.  While Democrats have grown incredildly strong in the Chicago area, for the most part in the rest of the state Democratic congressional candidates significantly underperformed the base partisanship.

Congressional Democratic Performance

The deepest blue indicates a Democratic congressional vote share over 10% or more over the base, medium blue 5-10%, light blue 0-5%, pink 0-5%, medium red 510%, deep red -10% or less.

Counties included in the IL-12 are grayed out because the Democrat in that district ran unopposed.  Looking at the state, it's clear that Democratic candidates have significant room for growth throughout the state.  The measure of base partisanship I've constructed is the mean of three low profile state races where voters most often vote for the party rather than the person.  While many people use the Presidential or Governor vote share as a measure of partisanship, that is misleading.  Because the purpose of a measure of base partisanship is measure the effect of party cues on voters, yet in those high profile races party cues play very little role in determining vote choice. In low profile state races party cues constitute the principal way in which voters choose who to vote for.

Looking back on what we've covered today, two themes emerge.  

1. Chicago is a mature electorate.  In Cook County, Democrats are dominant, and the large dropoff in midterm elections augurs well for 2008.

2.  In the rest of the state, Democrats are underperforming by a large margin.  Voters who lean Democratic, voting for Democratic candidate for Secretary of State, Comptroller, and Treasurer, are not voting for Congressional Democrats. Democrats took 57.8% of the state's congressional vote, and constitute 60.3% of the state's electorate when using base partisanship measures. If Democrats succeed in breaking through to rural voters who choose Democrats for low profile races, but give their vote to Republicans for Congress 2-3 seats above and beyond those identified earlier could come into play.

In this series I have created a race tier system that is I will explain in the next few sentences. Tier 0 races are those where the Democratic candidate won by a margin of less than 5%, the presumption being that incumbency grants an advantage of 5-10% that with the fundraising advantage that comes with holding office should be sufficient for these candidates to defend their seats without funding from the party.  The assumption that incumbency gives a 5-10% advantage drives the classification of the pickup categories.  Tier 1 races are those where the incumbent won by less than 5% in 2006, while tier 2 races are those where Republicans won by less than 10%. Looking at Illinois there is one Tier 1 race, and one Tier 2 race.

Tier 0

Race   D%       R%        Margin        2006 D Cand.

No races meet the criteria for this tier.

Tier 1

Race      D%      R%     Margin    2006 D Cand.

IL-06     48.6    51.4   2.7%      Tammy Duckworth

Tier 2

Race      D%      R%     Margin    2006 D Cand.

IL-10     46.6    53.4   6.8%      Dan Seals

And finally the running totals for the series.

Tier 0 (5)

CT-02, NY-19, NH-1, IN-09, WI-08

Tier 1 (10)

CT-04, IL-06, NJ-07, NY-25, NY-26, NY-29, OH-2, OH-15, PA-06, MI-07

Tier 2 (5)

OH-01, PA-15, IL-10, IN-03, MI-09

States Covered

CT, IL,IN, MA, MD,ME, MI, NH, NJ, NY, OH,PA, RI, WI, VT

•  That vast red wasteland

  What I don't understand is how Jerry Weller can continue to be in Congress with his ties to the neo-fascist Montt family in Guatemala.

  I'm from Illinois, and even I don't understand the ignorance found in the rural areas here.

  by Benito on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 10:49:40 AM PDT

  •  I think what's suprising

    is that when you use a measure of base partisanship, there are only 5 solidly Republican counties that make of less than 5% of the state's registered voters.

    But for some reason, congressional Dems are underperforming miserably in the rural areas of the state. I think that with a serious outreach program to rural voters, Democrats could turn Illinois deep blue like New England has become.

    by ManfromMiddletown on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 10:59:51 AM PDT

    •  I love maps.

      And this series you've been doing is really cool.  Definitely enjoying it.  You putting these together in GIS?

      by Land of Enchantment on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 11:10:15 AM PDT

      •  I've been filling in blank maps by hand.

        I wish I has GIS.

        I just found out that you R is available free as shareware.  This is a statistical software package, so now I might try to build up a larger database at the county level to look at different phenomena.

        In particular, I want to look at the effect that density has on vote choice.

        by ManfromMiddletown on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 11:22:22 AM PDT

    •  It's Chicago

      Gotta be. Deep, deep rural-urban divide in the state.

      by Benito on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 04:00:45 PM PDT

•  downstate

  Remember that many of the downstate counties are really purple; for example Peroia county went for Kerry by 70 votes out of 82,000 that were cast!

  http://www.cnn.com/...

  Our representative (LaHood, R IL-18) represents a badly gerrymandered district which includes many red counties.  The neighboring distict is even more badly gerrymandered and has been Democratic forever.

  The way to shake things up is to ungerrymander the districts.

  by onanyes on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 11:08:12 AM PDT

  •  Presidnential vote is

    a poor proxy for base party vote.

    I agree about the districts. If Democrats controlled the redistricting process, Cook County would most likely be cut into slices that would run out from the blue core to pick up red areas of the state.  I think that you could limit the Republicans to 2-3 seats in Illinois.

    by ManfromMiddletown on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 11:28:11 AM PDT

  •  No,

    the way to shake things up is to use Illinois to give an equal and opposite gerrymander to counter their control of Texas and Florida.  We could easily make four Democratic districts outside of Chicago.  See my downstate post for how.

    by AdmiralNaismith on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 02:22:51 PM PDT

•  knowing nothing, it still seems like there could

  be a lot more Ddemocrat districts in this State.

  by ca democrat on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 01:20:08 PM PDT

  •  I'm not sure

    I don't understand why Democrats are underperforming so horribly.  We're losing people that are voting for Democrats for Comptroller in the Congressional races.  that just does't make sense.  

    by ManfromMiddletown on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 01:30:39 PM PDT

    •  Losing people voting for Comptroller

      I think the Comptroller office is probably not a good gauge for what the Democratic base might be.  Dan Hynes was elected to his third term as Comptroller and enjoys strong -- if not bipartisan, then at least Democratic/Independent -- support.  He's projected an image of fiscal responsibility and accountability, which plays well in the red areas.  He's also tackled some initiatives -- for instance, reform of laws governing mortuaries and cemeteries that resulted in the clean-up of some highly visible eye-sore cemeteries -- that earned him respect from a number of voters who wouldn't ordinarily consider voting democratic.

      Lisa Madigan (AG) and Jesse White (SoS) polled even higher than Hynes, and largely for similar reasons -- perceived by the public as competent politicians who do their jobs well.  And frankly, I think that will be key to making inroads into the red areas.  We need to continue to elect competent and effective people who can demonstrate to the red voters that Democrats really can govern well.  Madigan is a perfect example.  Her first AG campaign was attacked as a case of nepotism (daughter of speaker of IL House), but this time around she led the ticket.  My sense is that -- barring any dead girl/live boy scenarios (actually, probably reversed in her case) -- she has the job as long as she wants it.

      In a way, there's some of the advantage of incumbency in it, but it's a also good start to get red voters thinking the unthinkable.

      by dsteffen on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 02:45:01 PM PDT

      •  Do you think that most people know what the

        Comptroller does?  You probably have a good idea (I honestly don't, I know it's a mysterious office that I don't understand.) But, I would venture that most people don't, and base their vote choice on  

        The method I'm using is the one that the guys who draw the maps use.  It's best to use  mean to smooth out any local eccentricities for one candidate.  I drew up two measures, one was the mean of the Comptroller, SoS, and Treasurer.  The other included the Gov and the AG.  Both rounded out to within a point of one another.

        The basic idea is to true to calcluate how voters act without information.  And most Fall voters act without information.  They rely on party cues to cast their vote.  True swing voters make up 10-15 of the population.

        I recently located free stat software, and once I figure it out, I'm going to run a comparison to see which races are the best able to predict voting behavior.  Information theory tell us that low profile races are better than high profile races at identifying the party cue effect, but I'm going to try to confirm that with real numbers.

        by ManfromMiddletown on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 03:19:25 PM PDT

        •  What the Comptroller does.

          I agree, most voters probably don't know, but I think, to a larger extent than I can ever recall (at least my perception) they have heard of Hynes, who has been highly visible as far as comptrollers go.  He was involved, as I said, in pushing the legislature to bring to account the people responsible for several cemeteries in a state of neglect.  The battle over, and subsequent clean up of Springdale Cemetery in Peoria, for instance, got a lot of TV airtime over several months in our area, and Hynes was highly involved and visible throughout.  I subscribe to several Illinois-based genealogy newsletters where the cemetery initiative (and Hynes by name) was lauded for preserving a number of small pioneer cemeteries that were in danger of disappearing.  Just one example.  Hynes has also managed to be involved in a number of other issues such as barring companies in arrears on taxes from doing business with the state, pushing local governments to comply with financial reporting requirements, going head-to-head with the governor on a few state and campaign financing issues, etc., which have kept him in the news, and in a favorable light as someone promoting open and accountable governance.

          I think it's a case where the public may not know what the Comptroller does, but they know who Dan Hynes is and have a favorable opinion of him.  

          If I understand your grouping for the mean, in the case of Illinois the results may disguise the situation I described, with popular incumbent candidates in the AG, SoS and Comptroller offices.  You might look at how the numbers come out if you group Comp, SoS and AG (average of approx. 2,236,000 votes, fairly closely grouped) versus Governor and treasurer (average 1,730,000 votes, also closely grouped).  Do you have any name-recognition survey data on the race?  I think it would be interesting to compare with other states to see if my perception of this being an unusual situation bears out, or if I'm just deluded.  (Wouldn't be the first time...)

          by dsteffen on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 06:10:20 PM PDT

•  How to redistrict Illinois

  I'm assuming Illinois will lose one district following the next census, most likely in the Chigago metro area, making 18 total districts. Here's how to do it, starting in the northwest and running counterclockwise.

  Republicans concentrated Democrats into two Mississippi river districts, the 17th and 12th.  We can do it with three.

  Start with a district--probably called the new 17th--that begins in Jo Daviess County, in the upper corner, and extends east into the Democratic parts of Rockford, and south along the Iowa border to Hancock county, keeping the little tails into Kewanee and Canton, but losing Quincy and the concentration of Democrats from Springfield and Decatur. The big population center would be the quad cities, as in the old 17th.  Safe Democrat.

  Next, the new 12th, which would continue to be based in East St. Louis, but would go no farther south than Randolph County, and would go up into Quincy, Jersey and Maricoup Counties, with enough farm country to make Jerry Costello's numbers less overwhelming, but not enough to endanger him.

  The new 18th would be at the southern tip of the state, but would look more like Glenn Poshard's old district than Shamekus's 55-45 monstrosity. It would contain not just Centralia, but Cairo, Carbondale and the Democratic precincts of Springfield.

  And the new 15th would have southern borders comparable to Terry Bruce's 1980s-era district. It would extend up the Indiana border and add Decatur to Champaign-Urbana to make the district competitive for Democrats.  Maybe extend a little of it into the Democratic parts of the old 11th, if necessrary, just to be sure.

  In the middle of all that, you have the new 16th, which would encompass Peoria and extend fingers down into the most Republican Springfield and Decatur suburbs, filling in the cracks left of the parts of IL that we didn't want to put into the Democratic districts.  

  Above that would be Hasturt's new 14th, which would narrowly snake between the 17th on the west, and the 15th and 8th on the east, all the way to Minnesota and the eastern part of the old 16th. It would lose most of Kane and Kendall counties.

  There! The territory that used to be the 12th and 15th through 19th districts, and the western part of the 14th--formerly two Democratic districts and four and a half Republican districts, has been flipped to four Dem and two Rep.

  That leaves twelve districts to be carved out of what used to be districts 1 through 11, 13, and the population center of the 14th.  In other words, seven super-safe Dem districts(1-5, 7 and 9), one narrowly-held Dem district(8), one Dem-leaning district with a R incumbent (10), and three and a part where the Republicans regularly win with under 60% (6, 11, 13, part of the 14th).  

  The trick to a large Democratic majority is a wheel-and-spoke model such that no district is located entirely in Cook County, but every one of them contains part of Chicago, and part of Lake, McHenry, DuPage, Will, Kendall, Kane or Kankakee Counties.  An aggressive gerrymander would give the Republicans a safe district based in Kendall Kane, Will and Dupage (the most conservative parts of the old 14th, 13th 11th and 6th) and eleven Dem-leaning districts, for a whopping 15-3 delegation.  A less aggressive map would be satisfied with two collar county and exurb districts and ten reasonably safe Democrats, for a still-spectacular 14-4 edge.

  Then and only then we'd watch the Republicans come crawling to us begging for a bipartisan end to gerrymandering.  Which we would grant them, contemporaneously with them freeing up Florida and Texas.

  I only wish  had the ability to make the cool maps like you did.  Drawing districts in my head based on only mostly-accurate population sense is fun, but harder to illustrate.

  by AdmiralNaismith on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 02:21:08 PM PDT

  •  IL-1 and 1L-2 must remain pretty much intact

         IL-1 and IL-2 probably can't be tweaked too much,

         As for the rest, here's hoping that Illinois elects a Democratic Governor, House and Senate in 2010.

         Before we ask for much in Texas and Florida, we'd better be prepared to answer questions about New York and California.
         

    by garscosi on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 02:40:01 PM PDT

    •  Reasonable people can differ

      I'd like to see districts 1, 2, 11 and half each of 13 and 15 combined shamelessly into four districts that elect four Democrats.  Seems to me, better four white liberal Democrats than two black Democrats and two white Republicans, the four of whom cancel each others' votes every time.

      Of course, I'm white, so there are some considerations that don't mean squat to me, that would be very important to other people. People who live in those districts.

      by AdmiralNaismith on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 02:52:52 PM PDT

      •  But the law is the law

        
             I believe that IL-1 and IL-2 may be designated as "black majority" districts, and that Justice Department review may be required for any revision.

        by garscosi on Mon Dec 18, 2006 at 05:17:58 PM PDT

•  but

  Peoria is winnable by the Democrats.  I wouldn't toss it to the Republicans; that is what is happening now.

  by onanyes on Sun Dec 17, 2006 at 04:33:30 PM PDT

•  Great series

  Always good work.

  by Callandor on Tue Dec 19, 2006 at 08:01:17 AM PDT

  •  Thanks <nt>

    by ManfromMiddletown on Tue Dec 19, 2006 at 10:38:37 AM PDT