Elections in Forgottonia

[Mr. Illini]

In the 1960's, a group of legislators named a 16-county area in western Illinois "Forgottonia," claiming that the region had been left behind - or forgotten - by Washington and Springfield. Since, the term has frequently been applied more broadly to "the rest" of Illinois - outside of Chicago.

To celebrate Illinois' bicentennial and my having a bit more time on my hands over the next couple of months, I'm going to put together a few posts (we'll see how far it goes) to explore the split between Chicago and "the rest," particularly how "the rest" would vote if we Chicagoans weren't around.

Hope you enjoy. Like many binges I go on here on Atlas Forum, how deep this will go remains to be seen. It could be capped at a couple of posts or I could still be making posts on this thread two or three years from now. Cheers!

[Antonio the Sixth]

Obligatory self-plug.

[Mr. Illini]

Below is a table with the results of the Presidential, Senatorial, and Gubernatorial elections in Illinois from 1990 through present day. These elections are split into three groupings - how the state minus Cook County voted, how Cook County voted, and then how the state as a whole voted. Third parties are excluded.

At this point, as stated, I've defined "The Rest"/"Forgottonia" as Illinois minus Cook, but that was short-sighted because at some point I would like to do some work using "The Rest" or Forgottonia as Illinois minus Cook and the collar counties, as I actually feel like that is a more accurate representation of the state's climate (obviously the collars are more closely tied to Cook than they are the rest of the state. Oh, well.

Some things we can notice...

I did not actually think, before I ran the numbers, that Forgottonia would have voted much to the left heading back in time despite the southern portion of the state (or, Little Egypt) having certainly become much more Republican over the last 27 years. This was because I included the collar counties in this example, and those areas are well-populated and have certainly marched left.

What I believe this tells us is that 1) I overestimated the population weight of the collar counties and 2) downstate's swing has likely been greater than the swing in the suburbs. To a smaller degree, the collars have grown, but that's not a great explanation because in that sense, their growth and increasing Democratic-voting would provide a counterbalance to the increasing Republican-voting (and population decline) downstate.

Durbin's margins downstate are truly impressive - as was Obama's 2004 performance. For Obama, obviously Keyes was not a good candidate and hopped in at the last minute amid the Ryan scandal, but even so, it is rare to see such margins (and probably unthinkable in the climate we're currently existing in).

One place that we do see that collar Democratic strength is in the 2016 Presidential. We know that downstate swung heavily toward Trump, so Clinton's 47% in Forgottonia is a testament to the how strongly the collar counties were repelled by Trump/Pence.

Another collar-muscle-flexing moment - the 1998 Gubernatorial. Poshard was unquestionably popular downstate, but he lost Forgottonia, explained only by Ryan's numbers in the collars. My, how things have changed.

A situation like 1990 is really hard to imagine these days - Republican Edgar won, but only got 55% in Forgottonia. Compare to 2014 where Rauner needed 63% in Forgottonia to pull off the victory statewide.

Impressive that Clinton won Forgottonia twice.





I am hoping to keep going with this back through hopefully at least the 1960's, but that is enough for tonight.

[Mr. Illini]

Thanks, A Strange Reflection - I'll have to be careful not to waste time duplicating.

[muon2]

Of course I post and then discover that someone else did a chunk of the work for me. Oh well, hope the senate and governor results are enjoyed.

One of the amazing things is how much work various posters here have done over the decade plus that I've been on. A search for just about any state (or alternate) can turn up quite a lot. For example, it's only with some of their work that I was able to produce my redistricting rules.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Thanks, A Strange Reflection - I'll have to be careful not to waste time duplicating.

Sorry, I didn't mean to be annoying. Besides, we aren't using the same definitions (you're dividing Illinois into Cook Co. and everything else, whereas I had the collar counties together with Cook). So by all means continue this.