Playing its expected role as the cornerstone in the Democratic Party’s plan to hold onto the White House by securing victories in Midwest “Blue Wall” states, Illinois handed Vice President Kamala Harris its 19 electoral votes and rejected former President Donald Trump for a third consecutive presidential election, unofficial results showed Tuesday night.
But counting continued — and may take days before concluding — in the three states considered key sections of the wall amid close, highly charged contests in Pennsylvania with its 19 electoral votes, Michigan with 15 and Wisconsin with 10. All are considered crucial for either side’s jigsaw puzzle map to get to the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.
“This could be a narrow, classic Wisconsin nail-biter election,” Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told CNN in advance of the balloting, echoing the attitudes also expressed in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The Associated Press called the outcome for Illinois 38 minutes after polls in the state closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday. A reliably blue state in presidential contests since it went for Bill Clinton over reelection-seeking President George H.W. Bush in 1992, Illinois was never considered in play by the Trump campaign.
With 9% of the state’s estimated votes counted, Harris led Trump 56% to 43%. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who remained on Illinois’ ballot even though he dropped his independent bid and endorsed Trump, received 1% of the vote. In the previous two presidential contests, in 2020 and 2016, Trump lost Illinois by 17 percentage points.
A confident Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker praised the state Democratic Party and party activists for their work at home and in Wisconsin and Michigan to encourage turnout hours before the polls closed.
“Elections matter and we are making sure that we have the infrastructure here in Illinois to get that message out to voters — from the top of the ticket all the way down the ballot,” Pritzker said. “I hope every Illinoisan who knocked doors, made phone calls, got friends and family to vote and maybe even ran for office themselves is proud of the work they put into this election. Their dedication will make a difference in the future of Illinois and this country.”
Election Day culminated a raucous and chaotic presidential election campaign season.
Trump was the first-ever major party nominee to run while being a convicted felon, having been convicted earlier this year in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor. He also was twice the target of assassination attempts. And he used his incendiary, rhetoric-infused campaign to try to recoup an office that he continued to baselessly claim was stolen from him four years ago, which is the underpinning of several indictments facing the 45th president for working to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol.
President Joe Biden was the Democrats’ presumed nominee until his late June debate against Trump revealed an aging incumbent delivering a stumbling performance. That, in turn, prompted Biden to drop his bid almost a month later, leading the effort to unify the party behind his running mate with only weeks to go before the Democratic National Convention in August in Chicago.
With polls open for a couple more hours, people walk through the rain outside a polling place at the Welles Park field house in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood on Nov. 5, 2024. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)
Both Trump and Harris asked voters to consider America’s and democracy’s future. For Trump, the election of Harris would further the nation’s status as “a garbage can for the world.” For Harris, the election of Trump would mean a dystopian future for democracy under a fascist leader.
Harris’ presidential campaign effectively began with the opening of the Democratic nominating convention on Aug. 19. Chicago was chosen as the party’s host city in recognition of Illinois serving a critical role in the “Blue Wall” that helped elect Biden in 2020 and party successes in the 2022 midterms.
Pritzker repeatedly emphasized that “The ‘Blue Wall’ is vitally important,” not just for Democrats but for Republicans.
“I think they are vitally important for either side,” he said a week before Election Day. “To be honest, I think it’s good that everybody’s a little on edge, on both sides probably. Having more people vote is better for the country.”
More than just battleground states, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan can truly be considered swing states. They backed President Barack Obama’s election in 2008 and reelection in 2012 before swinging to Trump in 2016 and then swinging back to Biden four years later.
With no major races in Illinois and its presidential contest not in doubt, Illinois’ proximity to Wisconsin and Michigan made both states targets for active campaigning by the state’s Democratic leaders and party activists.
Judith Love and her service dog, Fancy, head to a voting booth at the Kenosha Public Museum on Nov. 5, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
Election inspector Cindy Mueller chats with a voter while checking to see if their identification photo matches the person at a polling place in the Kenosha Public Museum on Nov. 5, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
Like Illinois, which has seen its once-Republican rich collar counties morph from red to purple amid changing demographics and a moderate social ideology that conflicts with the GOP’s growing far-right stances, the presidential race will likely be decided in the suburbs of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Detroit and Milwaukee.
Pennsylvania’s electoral votes were considered the big prize among the “Blue Wall” states, a fact reflected by both the frequency of Harris’ and Trump’s visits as well as the huge amount of campaign cash pumped into the state for advertising.
The presidential contenders and their running mates made more than 70 visits to the state. And an analysis by the Philadelphia Inquirer in the two weeks leading up to the election found total spending on the presidential race by Harris, Trump and their allies in Pennsylvania had exceeded $538 million. Democrats spent more than $294.7 million in Pennsylvania, and Republicans spent $243.6 million, the analysis showed.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who had been on Harris’ short list of running mates before she selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, told Fox News that polling showed the state “to be basically a jump ball, a statistical dead heat” heading into Tuesday.
In 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the state by 44,292 votes or 0.72%. Four years later, Biden defeated Trump by 80,555 or 1.16%.
The Pennsylvania outcome could come down to how each side does in Pittsburgh’s suburban Allegheny County and the Philadelphia suburbs in Bucks, Chester and Delaware counties.
Election workers open mail-in and early voting ballots to be tabulated in a central count room at the Kenosha Municipal Building on Nov. 5, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
An election worker opens mail-in and early voting ballots in a central count room at the Kenosha Municipal Building on Nov. 5, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
In a sign of potential post-election litigation from Trump’s campaign to challenge the state’s results, the former president’s team successfully extended mail-in voting in Bucks County because of long lines where voting had been cutoff.
But the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal from Republicans that could have tossed thousands of provisional ballots in Pennsylvania. Instead, the high court left in place a state Supreme Court ruling that elections officials must count provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots had been rejected.
Results for Pennsylvania, like Wisconsin, could be delayed since they are among the few states that do not allow processing of mail-in ballots until Election Day.
In Wisconsin, it’s the “WOW” counties that surround Milwaukee — as well as Madison and its suburbs in Dane County — that could determine who wins that state’s 10 electoral votes. Republicans still hold the advantage in Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties in suburban Milwaukee, but the GOP has seen some slippage.
In 2016, Trump won Wisconsin by a scant 22,748 votes, or 0.77%. Four years later, Biden won the state by an even closer margin, 20,682 votes or 0.62%.
Harris and Trump have collectively made more than 30 visits to the state, its role in the presidential election still substantial even though it has the fewest number of electoral votes among the “Blue Wall” states.
Election inspectors retrieve counted mail-in and early voting ballots after they were fed into an Election Systems & Software brand Model DS200 vote tabulator in a central count room at the Kenosha Municipal Building on Nov. 5, 2024. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
Complicating matters even more in the tight race, Wisconsin and Michigan were the only competitive “Blue Wall” states in which voters’ ballots included Kennedy.
In Michigan, observers hoped results would come back sooner than previous elections following passage of a new state law that went into effect that gave local election administrators more time to process mailed ballots prior to Tuesday.
Campaigning focused on Detroit and the suburbs of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, as well as Grand Rapids and suburban Kent County and Ann Arbor and suburban Washtenaw County.
Trump took Michigan in 2016 by a minuscule 10,274 votes, or 0.23%, while Biden won by a larger spread over Trump in 2020, 154,188 votes or 2.8%.
The Harris campaign mounted an extensive ground game in Michigan focusing on suburban women in an attempt to retake a suburban vote that narrowly went for Trump four years ago. It also sought to recruit supporters at the state’s major universities as well as at junior college and trade schools usually not the target of organizing activities.
But as they looked to build support among those Michigan voters, Democrats also looked to invigorate a core constituency, Black voters, after seeing movement among some Black men favor the Republican. Harris also tried to gain support from Arab American voters in suburban Detroit who have voiced opposition to Biden administration policies in helping Israel in its war with Hamas that has led to tens of thousands of casualties in Gaza.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/11/05/election-illinois-kamala-harris/