Thirty years ago, 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis actually won an Illinois county that neighbors Champaign County (specifically, Vermilion County), while losing Champaign County en route to losing Illinois as a whole as part of a landslide loss nationally to Republican George H.W. Bush. 1988 was the last time a Democratic presidential nominee lost Champaign County, but, until Tuesday, Champaign County had a strong Republican machine that, with few exceptions, dominated countywide elections.
On Tuesday, the blue wave hit Champaign County in a big way, with all of the Democratic statewide candidates carrying Champaign County on the way to statewide victory (even Republican attorney general candidate Erika Harold, who is from Urbana, lost her home county on the way to losing statewide to Democratic Attorney General-elect Kwame Raoul), and Democratic countywide candidates in Champaign County winning five countywide races, including the newly-created office of county executive. Darlene Kloppel, Aaron Ammons, Laurel Prussing, Dustin Heuerman, and George Danos were elected county executive, clerk, treasurer, sheriff, and auditor, respectively, in Champaign County, and Democrats in Champaign County won all but one contested county board race. A major factor into why Democrats were able to win big in Champaign County on Tuesday was because of massive turnout in the area around the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) campus. A total of ten precincts, all in or near the UIUC campus, saw turnout increases of over 200% compared to the November 2014 elections, with two of them seeing turnout increases of over 400% compared to the November 2014 elections! Another factor was the Democratic trend of the outskirts of Champaign and Urbana: one example of this was Democratic candidate Leah Taylor defeating Republican candidate Tom Dillavou in Champaign County Board District 5, a district that includes some of the far-western parts of the Champaign urban area and rural areas immediately west of Champaign, to flip a Republican-held county board seat to the Democrats.
Even when Democrats didn't win constituencies that include parts of Champaign County (remember, outer Champaign County remained heavily Republican even as Champaign and Urbana provided massive margins in favor of Democrats), they came uncomfortably or unusually close to unseating Republican incumbents. In the 13th Congressional District of Illinois, Republican incumbent Rodney Davis needed a 25,307-vote margin outside of the portion of Champaign County that is in the 13th District to overcome a 22,577-vote margin in the portion of the 13th District that is in of Champaign County and narrowly hold the 13th District for the GOP. In the 104th Representative (i.e., state house of representatives) District, appointed Republican incumbent Mike Marron barely won the Champaign County portion of the district, which includes places like Rantoul and Gifford, which are not progressive strongholds by anyone's imagination, with the portion of Vermilion County outside of Danville that is in the 104th District providing the vast majority of Marron's margin of victory on the way to winning 56% of the vote district-wide to win a first full term in office, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the closest any Republican has come to losing a state representative race in a district containing any part of Vermilion County and/or any significant part of outer Champaign County since Illinois switched to electing state representatives by single-member, first-past-the-post representative districts in the 1980's.
In the past three decades, Champaign County has transitioned from a Republican stronghold to a true microcosm of a Democratic-leaning state, with Tuesday's elections being the completion of that transition. With the Champaign County blue wave, Democrats in Illinois now have, in addition to the Chicago/Cook County area, a second major stronghold for the modern Democratic Party in Illinois that can serve as a bench for potential statewide Democratic candidates.
AUTHOR'S NOTE #1: This blog post references unofficial election results available at the time the blog post was published.
AUTHOR'S NOTE #2: The author of this blog post served as an election judge (i.e, poll worker) in Vermilion County, Illinois for the 2018 general election; this blog post is mainly about elections in Champaign County, but one election that is in a constituency containing parts of Vermilion County was mentioned in the blog post, and this blog post purely represents the analysis and opinions of the author and is not, in any way whatsoever, connected to election judge duties.
On Tuesday, the blue wave hit Champaign County in a big way, with all of the Democratic statewide candidates carrying Champaign County on the way to statewide victory (even Republican attorney general candidate Erika Harold, who is from Urbana, lost her home county on the way to losing statewide to Democratic Attorney General-elect Kwame Raoul), and Democratic countywide candidates in Champaign County winning five countywide races, including the newly-created office of county executive. Darlene Kloppel, Aaron Ammons, Laurel Prussing, Dustin Heuerman, and George Danos were elected county executive, clerk, treasurer, sheriff, and auditor, respectively, in Champaign County, and Democrats in Champaign County won all but one contested county board race. A major factor into why Democrats were able to win big in Champaign County on Tuesday was because of massive turnout in the area around the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) campus. A total of ten precincts, all in or near the UIUC campus, saw turnout increases of over 200% compared to the November 2014 elections, with two of them seeing turnout increases of over 400% compared to the November 2014 elections! Another factor was the Democratic trend of the outskirts of Champaign and Urbana: one example of this was Democratic candidate Leah Taylor defeating Republican candidate Tom Dillavou in Champaign County Board District 5, a district that includes some of the far-western parts of the Champaign urban area and rural areas immediately west of Champaign, to flip a Republican-held county board seat to the Democrats.
Even when Democrats didn't win constituencies that include parts of Champaign County (remember, outer Champaign County remained heavily Republican even as Champaign and Urbana provided massive margins in favor of Democrats), they came uncomfortably or unusually close to unseating Republican incumbents. In the 13th Congressional District of Illinois, Republican incumbent Rodney Davis needed a 25,307-vote margin outside of the portion of Champaign County that is in the 13th District to overcome a 22,577-vote margin in the portion of the 13th District that is in of Champaign County and narrowly hold the 13th District for the GOP. In the 104th Representative (i.e., state house of representatives) District, appointed Republican incumbent Mike Marron barely won the Champaign County portion of the district, which includes places like Rantoul and Gifford, which are not progressive strongholds by anyone's imagination, with the portion of Vermilion County outside of Danville that is in the 104th District providing the vast majority of Marron's margin of victory on the way to winning 56% of the vote district-wide to win a first full term in office, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the closest any Republican has come to losing a state representative race in a district containing any part of Vermilion County and/or any significant part of outer Champaign County since Illinois switched to electing state representatives by single-member, first-past-the-post representative districts in the 1980's.
In the past three decades, Champaign County has transitioned from a Republican stronghold to a true microcosm of a Democratic-leaning state, with Tuesday's elections being the completion of that transition. With the Champaign County blue wave, Democrats in Illinois now have, in addition to the Chicago/Cook County area, a second major stronghold for the modern Democratic Party in Illinois that can serve as a bench for potential statewide Democratic candidates.
AUTHOR'S NOTE #1: This blog post references unofficial election results available at the time the blog post was published.
AUTHOR'S NOTE #2: The author of this blog post served as an election judge (i.e, poll worker) in Vermilion County, Illinois for the 2018 general election; this blog post is mainly about elections in Champaign County, but one election that is in a constituency containing parts of Vermilion County was mentioned in the blog post, and this blog post purely represents the analysis and opinions of the author and is not, in any way whatsoever, connected to election judge duties.
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