If Chicago was removed, would Illinois be a red or purple state? (Peoria: residential, metro area)

[Doughboy1918]

Originally Posted by Kraftask

Difficult to say, but if you look at Indiana, they're solid red. As for neighboring Missouri, Wisconsin & Iowa, they're kinda purple states, but they lean more red.

Is Indiana really that red? As far as history goes, it's sort of been purple and especially on a cultural level as well, due to it's perfect balance of flat farmland, rust belt towns, big cities and national parks.

[guidoLaMoto]

Why is it political discussions so rarely involve any actual facts?...

In regards this discussion. there should be no discussion at all-- just look at the election results maps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_I...orial_election for instance.

An even better example-- the 2010 election when Quinn won by winning only ONE county (Cook) with a majority, and he squeeked by in three others with a small plurality, out of 104 counties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_I...orial_election

[Doughboy1918]

Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto

Why is it political discussions so rarely involve any actual facts?...

In regards this discussion. there should be no discussion at all-- just look at the election results maps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_I...orial_election for instance.

An even better example-- the 2010 election when Quinn won by winning only ONE county (Cook) with a majority, and he squeeked by in three others with a small plurality, out of 104 counties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_I...orial_election

Look at presidential elections though, big difference, and they are far more important to the American people than those of their state governors.

[Blowm3]

Downstate Illinois might as well be a southern state lol. Very conservative outside of Chicago. Even those in Chicago and the suburbs have conservative leaning people under the guise of "Democrat". Illinois would be very red if not for Chicago and other college towns like Urbana-Champaign and Normal.

[Maintainschaos]

Originally Posted by Blowm3

Downstate Illinois might as well be a southern state lol. Very conservative outside of Chicago. Even those in Chicago and the suburbs have conservative leaning people under the guise of "Democrat". Illinois would be very red if not for Chicago and other college towns like Urbana-Champaign and Normal.

There are a number of blue collar Democrats in Illinois in manufacturing towns like Peoria, Rockford, Decatur, etc.

The problem with any of the red/blue maps that are presented is the skew of land mass when, in reality, the maps should be shown based on population. Maps based on population would show, of course, Cook county very blue, most of the collar counties blue, places like Champaign and the Metro East blue, and the bulk of the rest of the population of Illinois either leaning slightly blue (Rockford, parts of the Quad Cities, Peoria) or slightly red (Springfield, B/N). There's really nothing Southern about virtually all of downstate Illinois. Conservative does not equate to Southern (see plenty of parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, N/S Dakota, etc.) as ample examples.

[Kmanshouse]

Take the suburbs out with it - state is RED.

With the suburbs but not the city - state is PURPLE

[CBOTfan]

My youngest brother once sent me a blue/red map for how the counties in his state voted in 2020. While the urban areas were blue, most of the rest of the state was red and he seemed to feel that a "just a few blue areas are bossing around the whole state." Similar to the point by Maintainschaos above, I had to point out to my brother that it is not geographic land mass that is voting, it is people who are voting, from wherever they live. And of course, there were some red votes in blue counties and some blue votes in red counties, which are not apparent in the blue/red maps that are foisted on us.

[Doughboy1918]

Originally Posted by Kmanshouse

Take the suburbs out with it - state is RED.

With the suburbs but not the city - state is PURPLE

But what about the Illinois-side suburbs of St. Louis in the southwest part of the state, as well as the many mid-sized cities in the central region as well, including Peoria, Bloomington, Champaign-Urbana or Springfield?

[guidoLaMoto]

Originally Posted by Doughboy1918

Look at presidential elections though, big difference, and they are far more important to the American people than those of their state governors.

2020 presidential election results by county. I rest my case. https://chicago.suntimes.com/electio...020-county-map

We can go to most of the states with large metro areas. They all seem to have rural areas that vote in a reasoning 55/45 ratio for GOP but metro areas that vote reflexly, overwhelmingly Dem (90/10).

Then there's the 2016 presidential results-- Hillary (America's mother-in-law) got 3M more popular votes than The Donald, yet won only ~300 out of the ~3000- counties in the country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_U...ntial_election

The Romans figured it out 2500 y/a and established the forerunner of our own electoral college. A despotic but unified plurality could swing elections negating the will of fragmented, smaller interest groups. For the US, it was a matter of equalizing electoral power among states of widely disparate populations.

We see how Chi & Philly control the outcomes of elections in their respective states. Maybe it's time to re-think the electoral college to balance the election power of urban vs rural counties, rather than large vs small states..... (For those among us who may be literate but innumerate-- switching to electoral votes allocated proportional to popular vote rather than a winner-take-all allocation is essentially abandoment of the electoral college and complete loss of the protection it affords. If E = kP, then E [electoral votes] is essentially equal to P [popular votes.])

Even as we speak, there are a dozens of counties in WA, IL and elsewhere who are suing to succede from their states to join adjecent states that more closely reflect the voters' POV. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=avast&q=co...eccede&ia=news

[BRU67]

It would depend on the economic strength of the other IL metros. If the Naperville area took Chicago's place as an engine of commerce, that pulls IL blue, as would poor urban minority/majority areas, should Rockford, for example, become more like that. The rural and rural/suburban areas would pull red.

So hard to say. My best guess? Purplish for now.