Politics
| Year | Republican | Democratic |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 36.9% 1,981,158 | 61.8% 3,319,237 |
| 2004 | 44.48% 2,345,946 | 54.82% 2,891,550 |
| 2000 | 42.58% 2,019,421 | 54.60% 2,589,026 |
| 1996 | 36.81% 1,587,021 | 54.32% 2,341,744 |
| 1992 | 34.34% 1,734,096 | 48.58% 2,453,350 |
| 1988 | 50.69% 2,310,939 | 48.60% 2,215,940 |
| 1984 | 56.17% 2,707,103 | 43.30% 2,086,499 |
| 1980 | 49.65% 2,359,049 | 41.72% 1,981,413 |
| 1976 | 50.10% 2,364,269 | 48.13% 2,271,295 |
| 1972 | 59.03% 2,788,179 | 40.51% 1,913,472 |
| 1968 | 47.08% 2,174,774 | 44.15% 2,039,814 |
| 1964 | 40.53% 1,905,946 | 59.47% 2,796,833 |
| 1960 | 49.80% 2,368,988 | 49.98% 2,377,846 |
In the past, Illinois was a critical swing state leaning marginally towards to the Republican Party. This has changed and the state has supported Democratic presidential candidates since 1992. John Kerry easily won the state's 21 electoral votes in 2004 by a margin of 11 percentage points with 54.8% of the vote. Traditionally, Chicago, East Saint Louis, and the Illinois portion of the Quad Cities have tended to vote heavily Democratic, along with the Central Illinois population centers of Peoria, Champaign-Urbana and Decatur.
Rural districts have tended to vote more heavily Republican, and the southern half of the state has historically tended Republican since the 1920s. The Republican Party was strongest in southern Illinois during the sixties and seventies when Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford won all areas of southern Illinois, with the exception of East St. Louis, three to one.
Read more about this topic: Government Of Illinois
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“All politics takes place on a slippery slope. The most important four words in politics are “up to a point.””
—George F. Will (b. 1941)
“Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures; there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.”
—Peggy Noonan (b. 1950)