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:
“Politics is not an end, but a means. It is not a product, but a process. It is the art of government. Like other values it has its counterfeits. So much emphasis has been placed upon the false that the significance of the true has been obscured and politics has come to convey the meaning of crafty and cunning selfishness, instead of candid and sincere service.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate. Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the “Principe,” has determined the development of European history ever since.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want.”
—Cecil Parkinson (b. 1932)