Illinois Primary Results

[Bacon King]

Just skimmed a Google News search to see what I could find about turnout. Posted it in the other thread:

Turnout reports I've found so far:

Cook County: "potentially record low turnout"
North Shore of Chicago: "steady in some neighborhoods"
Wilmette (Cook County): "much slower compared to previous primaries"
Park Ridge (Cook County): "low"
Champaign County: "slow and steady"; estimated turnout 35k
university precincts around the state: "nonexistent" (due to spring break)
Bloomington: "steady"; just under 4k voters by noon
Knox County: "average" and "consistent with previous primaries"
Will County: "typical low primary turnout"

So turnout appears to be average only in the lower income (and fairly evangelical) counties that have turnout reports: Knox and Champaign. As you get closer to Chicago from there, turnout falls, reaching abysmal levels once you reach Cook County itself.

[Bacon King]

Like I asked in the other thread, what are these turnout numbers comparing to?  Are they talking about combined turnout for the two parties, and comparing to past primaries?  Because that's not going to be very meaningful, since there's no Democratic contest this time.

No idea; most didn't specify, but I'm assuming that comparing past primaries (and talks of "record lows") also includes past races when only one party had a contest. Also to note for Champaign County- if their estimate holds up, that'll only be an 8% vote decrease from 2008.

This might be the 5 PM exit poll. I'm hearing it is 42% to 38%. Newt has 15% to Paul's 5%. This is from the same source I posted before. They released results at the same times for MI and were within two points of the actual result.

That'd be beautiful. I don't believe it though. Paul isn't going to do as poorly as he did in 2008 for one thing.

1. Pretty much all Illinois schools are on spring break this week, so Paul's biggest voter base probably isn't even in the state
2. Paul also overperformed among early voters, per PPP's poll, and presumably those aren't counted in the exit poll

[Bacon King]

Here is some early exit poll data that isn't what anyone is looking for, except 56% say the economy is their top issue, which voters tended to go for Mittens in the past. Other than that, 40%+ of both Romney and Santorum voters have reservations about their chosen candidate. Who knew? 

Thanks for the link!

Most important candidate quality:

Can defeat Obama: 37%
true conservative: 20%
strong character: 20%
right experience: 17%

"Can Defeat Obama" has lately been like like 60% Romney to 25% Santorum in exit polls
"True Conservative"; 55% Santorum to 20% Romney
"Strong Character"; 60% Santorum to 20% Romney
"Right Experience"; 60% Romney to 20% Santorum

...mathing that out, that gives a total of 43% Romney to 38% Santorum. (Note, if this ends up being accurate, it's probably more coincidence than anything else, this is very rough estimates).