Illinois and Kansas swinging to Clinton vs. Obama 2012 just feels so wrong.

[Eraserhead]

I can think of some reasons for why this happened (Illinois: DuPage lol/Kansas: Johnson hurting Trump much more than Clinton/etc.) but these were two of Obama's "home states" and literally everything around them swung to Trump vs. Romney 2012.

[MT Treasurer]

Maybe Kansas is becoming Virginia 2.0?  /s

Seriously though, I agree. Especially IL was shocking IMO.

[Eraserhead]

A couple of other things to take into account that make these results seem strange:

Yeah, Illinois is technically one of Clinton's "home states" too but there has never been any evidence of anyone giving a damn about that before. Barack Obama slaughtered her in the 2008 primary and Bernie Sanders came within a whisker of upsetting her here despite the fact that it had what should have been some of the worst demographics in the country for him outside of the south. Plus, the swings to Trump almost everywhere else in the midwest were YUGE.

Johnson garnered a lot of support in Kansas and I could see it being the type of state where it came pretty overwhelmingly from Republicans/conservative leaning indies... but Kansas was also, somewhat surprisingly, one of Jill Stein's best states. As of now it looks like it was probably her fourth best in the entire country in terms of the percentage of the vote she received (although California may push it down to fifth if they ever finish counting their votes). She wasn't even on the ballot here in 2012! Also, Obama and Sanders both crushed Hillary in the caucuses here.

Yet these states still swung to Hillary in the general vs. Obama 2012.

Kansas did vote pretty strongly against Trump in their GOP caucus but Illinois voted for him in their primary.

[LLR]

Don't underestimate how awful Sam Brownback is.

[Eraserhead]

Lots of questionable late night/early morning rambling in this thread by yours truly.

Do keep in mind that the statewide swings here are marginal.  They're there though so let's overanalyze them!

[Nyvin]

Illinois was particularly surprising considering it's Obama's home state (more or less).  

All the Clinton gains in the Chicago area were just too much, even with the big gains Trump made down state.

Another surprise was that Allegheny, PA actually trended and swung to the Dems.

[Gass3268]

Illinois was particularly surprising considering it's Obama's home state (more or less).  

All the Clinton gains in the Chicago area were just too much, even with the big gains Trump made down state.

Another surprise was that Allegheny, PA actually trended and swung to the Dems.

There has really been a growing divergence between Pittsburgh and the inner suburbs vs the rest of the counties in the metropolitan area. Pittsburgh's economy is much more diversified than what it was back in the 70's and 80's.

[Smash255]

Kansas Republicans have plenty of problems which likely helped swing the state.

In Illinois, the bulk of the seing was due to suburban Chicago.  Clinton and Obama are pretty close as candidates go for appealing to well educated suburbanites.  Trump on other hand is considerably worse at appealing to well educated suburbanites than Romney.
 

[Nym90]

The Chicago metro area, including its suburbs, in many ways resembles large cities in the Northeast along the Acela corridor more than it does other Midwestern large cities. It's a world city and has much more of the "new economy" for lack of a better term than other major Midwestern cities do. There is much more vibrancy and less industrial decline than you find in Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, etc.

The new economy vs. old economy dichotomy explains a lot of the 2016 swings nationwide.

[ApatheticAustrian]

i guess mega urban chicago isn't voting a whole lot of normally cause everyone knows the dems are winning and the scare of trump has awakened sleeping potentials like in CA?

the strange thing is that the same hasn't happened in the NE....besides maryland.

[Gass3268]

The Chicago metro area, including its suburbs, in many ways resembles large cities in the Northeast along the Acela corridor more than it does other Midwestern large cities. It's a world city and has much more of the "new economy" for lack of a better term than other major Midwestern cities do. There is much more vibrancy and less industrial decline than you find in Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, etc.

The new economy vs. old economy dichotomy explains a lot of the 2016 swings nationwide.

Even though every county in the Milwaukee Metropolitan area swung to Clinton.

[Pericles]

College-educated whites.

[jaichind]

In 2012 IL swung toward Romney significantly so I am sure there is not left of the Obama bonus to squeeze out in 2016.  Also high income Chicago suburbs swung toward Clinton this time around just like other metropole suburbs near Boston NYC, SEPA, DC and SECA.

[Nym90]

The Chicago metro area, including its suburbs, in many ways resembles large cities in the Northeast along the Acela corridor more than it does other Midwestern large cities. It's a world city and has much more of the "new economy" for lack of a better term than other major Midwestern cities do. There is much more vibrancy and less industrial decline than you find in Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, etc.

The new economy vs. old economy dichotomy explains a lot of the 2016 swings nationwide.

Even though every county in the Milwaukee Metropolitan area swung to Clinton.

Fair enough, I should have left Milwaukee off my list. Rest of my point still stands.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Well, you can't expect to do well in Illinois if you can't win a single collar county. When the blue extends all the way out to Rockford, that's just too many votes to make up downstate.

If you've ever been to DuPage County, you probably know that the fact that Republicans can't win there on the presidential level despite it being tailor-made GOP territory and going red for statewide races routinely is an absolute travesty and indicative of the way the party has changed to alienate suburban voters. That county has a million people in it and used to be a Republican linchpin, but Trump got blown out there.

I'd also have to guess there's a good chance that Trump lost every township and ward in Cook county, something even John McCain didn't do.

[Young Conservative]

Kansas barely "swung."  I wouldn't even say it swung because both Trump and Clinton got a lower percentage of the vote than Romney or Obama. It was likely caused by suburban angst with Trump and protest votes, not long term trends.

[Nyvin]

Well, you can't expect to do well in Illinois if you can't win a single collar county. When the blue extends all the way out to Rockford, that's just too many votes to make up downstate.

If you've ever been to DuPage County, you probably know that the fact that Republicans can't win there on the presidential level despite it being tailor-made GOP territory and going red for statewide races routinely is an absolute travesty and indicative of the way the party has changed to alienate suburban voters. That county has a million people in it and used to be a Republican linchpin, but Trump got blown out there.

I'd also have to guess there's a good chance that Trump lost every township and ward in Cook county, something even John McCain didn't do.

I think Trump won the Barrington and Orland Parks areas in Cook County.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

it only "feels wrong" because you're viewing it in the (false) context of a trump win

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Well, you can't expect to do well in Illinois if you can't win a single collar county. When the blue extends all the way out to Rockford, that's just too many votes to make up downstate.

If you've ever been to DuPage County, you probably know that the fact that Republicans can't win there on the presidential level despite it being tailor-made GOP territory and going red for statewide races routinely is an absolute travesty and indicative of the way the party has changed to alienate suburban voters. That county has a million people in it and used to be a Republican linchpin, but Trump got blown out there.

I'd also have to guess there's a good chance that Trump lost every township and ward in Cook county, something even John McCain didn't do.

I think Trump won the Barrington and Orland Parks areas in Cook County.

Right, I forgot Orland Park was in Cook, and I guess Barrington is so uber-rich that they probably would never vote Democrat.

But Trump had to have lost in the rest of that northwest portion of Cook (like Palatine, which voted Kirk in 2010 by like 20 points and voted Romney in 2012) by double digits. Got to be the worst Republican showing in that area in half a century at least.

[Xing]

Plenty of things feel "wrong" in this election. Florida trending Republican (albeit narrowly), Wisconsin going for Trump, North Carolina ending up more Republican than Arizona, etc.

[muon2]

I think this map from the Chicago Tribune (non-Atlas colors) illustrates the change within IL over the last 20 years. In 2000 it was the city vs the suburbs with downstate appearing as a wash. The 2016 map starkly puts the suburbs more in line with the city compared to the bulk of downstate. The Trump message worked well with old-economy workers downstate, but not so much with information economy workers in suburban Chicago.

[Nyvin]

So if IL-14 gets pulled more into the Chicago area, there seems to be a good chance the Dems could draw a 12-5 map in 2020, even if they do eventually lose IL-17.   

[catographer]

The answer to why she improved in Illinois is really simple. 65% of the state's population live in counties where Clinton improved (Cook and collar counties). The county maps of this election are incredibly misleading. Trump's massive gains in tiny counties were met by Clinton's small to modest gains in large counties. In Illinois, where the population mostly resides in the Chicago area, this different created a net-Clinton gain.

In Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, and Iowa, the populations live more in rural and exurban areas than in urban areas. So Clinton's gains in cities and inner suburbs were off-set by gains in the rural parts.

A good illustration of this is the Senate and Presidential race in Wisconsin. Johnson won more counties than Clinton but did worse overall because Clinton did better than Johnson in traditionally Republican and highly-populated Milwaukee collar counties in the south east.

Kansas can be explained for similar reasons. Clinton did better in Kansas City and its suburbs, while falling in rural parts. While most of the state is rural, her gains in Johnson county were substantial, almost winning the most populous county in Kansas.

States where Clinton improved on Obama's margin but won fewer counties: Washington, Illinois, Virginia, Georgia.
Where she won the same number of counties: Arizona, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts, Kansas.
Where she won more counties: California, Texas, Utah.

[ElectionsGuy]

Unlike other Midwest states, the Chicago metropolitan area encompasses most of the state's population. It is not even comparable to most other states. Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis, etc. and their metropolitan only cover about 25% of the states population at best.

The trends were the same. Rural, downstate and mid-sized cities overwhelmingly swung Trump, the city stayed largely the same, the upscale suburbs swung towards Clinton. Same formula with different makeup.

Kansas can be explained easily by two things:

(1) A large portion of the state lives in a county with high education rates and incomes - Johnson which unsurprisingly swung towards Clinton, but by a surprisingly high margin. Most of the rest of the state is either the Wichita area (standard great plains city, little movement) or (2) rural, but these rural areas (especially western Kansas) was already so Republican that there wasn't as much movement. The areas that swung the most to Trump were the ones closest to Missouri, the ones that weren't already 80% Republican.

[136or142]

1.Kansas unpopularity of Sam Brownback.

I think this also is the best explanation for the Democratic Presidential decline in Connecticut and Rhode Island (there was no similar decline in those states in the aggregate Congressional vote) with the unpopularity of Governors Dan Malloy and Gina Raimondo.  I think the extreme unpopularity of Dan Malloy has been well covered, but on Gina Raimondo:

http://www.golocalprov.com/politics/fecteau-raimondo-deserves-a-credible-primary-opponent

"Mrs. Raimondo’s approval rating barely ekes above 40% for a reason — making her one of the least popular governors throughout the country. Some of it has to do with her inability to connect working and middle-income families she represents (she is an asocial introvert), but much of it has to do with the fact she is so inundated with controversy, makes poor decisions, and has a track record that doesn’t correspond with her campaign promises. "


and

Morning Consult's latest survey of the nation's governors shows that Gina Raimondo's approval/disapproval track has slipped slightly, to 38 percent/55 percent. The poll of registered voters has a six percentage point margin of error.

Probably not coincidently about one month before the first article, somebody at the Wall Street Journal wrote an opinion editorial praising Raimondo:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/an-island-of-rationality-in-blue-state-new-england-1479513092

As to Illinois.  I'm not sure what the OP is referring to.  Both Obama and Hillary Clinton won by about 17% and Obama received around 2% more of the share of the vote than Hillary Clinton did.  I suppose in the 2 candidate preferred, Hillary Clinton won by more than Barack Obama in Illinois.