Politics,
Prejudice,
and Party
Realignments
in
Southern Illinois
A Look at 52 Downstate Counties and How They Voted in 2020
By Steve Rensberry
Opinion / Analysis
_________________
EDWARDSVILLE, Ill.,
- 12/1/2020 - Look at a map of how Southern Illinois residents have
voted since the late 1990s and you won't see much competition, nor
much blue. This year's colossal presidential election was a perfect
example, with Republican candidates -- the president included --
receiving support from roughly 70 percent of voters in nearly every
county at-or-below the Springfield line.
 |
Results per county (pg 1). See citations for data sources.
|
How deep does the
red run in Southern Illinois, and how long will its love affair with
the GOP continue? If the two main political parties stay as they are,
with Democrats leaning liberal and Republicans leaning conservative,
probably for a good while yet. But there are no guarantees.
This particular
analysis, compiled from the most recent election data available,
looks specifically at 52 of the state's 102 counties, the most
southern, with statistics on how each county voted in the 2016 and
2020 elections, and a select number of other demographics. Believe it
or not, as of this past week not all votes in every county had yet
been finalized or completely counted. I chose to use percentages for
comparison rather than vote totals for this reason. The declared
winners are not expected to change.
 |
Results per county (pg 2). See citations for data sources.
|
In one sense, given
the region's histo
ry, the
latest expression of political sentiment shouldn't come as
much of a surprise. Historically, the region has always leaned
conservative, the experts say
,
sharing cultural values with
the South in general as well as with neighboring Missouri and
Upper Southern states such as Tennessee and Kentucky. For decades it
was a more conservative Democratic Party that captured their votes,
dominating elections from before the American Civil War, through
Reconstruction, up until the 1960s. Then things began to change.
"Beginning as recently as the presidential election of 2000,
Democrats have under-performed in Southern Illinois despite winning
Illinois consecutively," this
online description
about the region states.
What is surprising to me is
the depth of Republican allegiance and loyalty to such a polarizing president,
apparently oblivious to the integrity they've sacrificed in the
process
-- a question more than a few people have asked since Nov. 4
One estimate is
that nationwide Trump won approximately 92 percent of the vote that
he had in 2016. By comparison, of the 52 Southern Illinois counties
considered in this study, Trump captured 98.7 percent of the vote he
received that year.
In the aggregate,
pro-Trump voters in these 52 counties represented 69.6 percent of the
region's vote totals in 2016, and 71.73 percent in 2020.
Approximately 2.437 million votes were
cast for Trump by Illinois voters in the 2020 General
Election, compared to 2.135 million in 2016. See: 2020 Election Results.
"According to
the national exit poll, Trump won 92% of the voters who cast a ballot
for him in 2016. He also took 85% of self-described conservatives and
94% of self-described Republicans. Trump won only 81% of
conservatives and 88% of Republicans back in 2016," writes Harry
Enten in a 2018 article for CNN, How Biden won: He built on
Clinton's successes. "Biden emerged victorious by
winning an even larger share of the Democratic base than Clinton in
2016 and picking off voters in the middle of the electorate."
 |
Southern Illinois has become a sea of red.
|
Having been a
resident of five southern counties since 1988, specifically the
counties of Bond, Effingham, Madison, St. Clair and Clinton, I can
tell you first-hand a good deal of the animosity toward the northern,
more Democratic half of the state has been here for at least that
long. The kind of intense devotion to a presidential candidate, like
we've seen with Trump, is different however -- and a bit difficult to
process. Where are the guard rails? Does might make right? I haven't
seen a satisfying answer from Illinois Republicans to either of these
questions, despite a platform in previous years that touted
principles, ethics and fiscal conservatism. Have they changed that
much, or was it all a ruse to begin with? You tell me.
We are, it's been
noted, at a point where the pressure to rally around one political
party and unite to defeat a common political enemy is everything.
It's all hands on deck. Conservative Southern Illinoisans, however,
were in the polarized camp long before Trumpism came along.
Again, from
first-hand experience, if you're talking politics with a typical
resident in small-town Southern Illinois, it's automatically assumed
that you: 1) Hate Michael Madigan. 2) Know without question that
Democrats are to blame for the state's economic problems. 3) Hate
Chicago, and the people who live there. 4) Despise taxes from the
depths of your soul, especially property taxes used to fund public
schools. 5) Know that
everyone north of Springfield is out to rob you of your hard-earned
tax dollars, in order to fund a Democratic-led spending spree that
benefits only those who live in-or-around Chicago. 6) Believe that
everyone who leaves Illinois does so because of high taxation and the
state's Democratic leadership.
There is no
middle ground in the debate, and if you don't share these assumptions
or insist on more proof or evidence, expect to be scoffed at.
Madigan, of
course, does have some serious corruption
issues on his hands, but thankfully for the Republicans they
now have Gov. JB Pritzker,
who conveniently fills the need for a downstate nemesis. Evidence of
corruption or rural bias? Who needs it. He's a Democrat. Thus we see
"Pritzker Sucks"
signs on display, even when he's not on the ballot.
I've seen at least
three types of analysis with respect to Southern Illinois and its
political alliances.
One involves economics.
Though both parties share blame for the state's fiscal woes,
Democratic Party critics have successfully hammered their case home,
painting Democrats as spendthrifts,
out of touch, and the source of all that's wrong with the state's
economy. One of the more neutral articles I've read on the subject
was written by Daniel Vock in 2018: Who Ruined Illinois?
Edward McClelland,
writing for ChicagoMag in a 2018 article Why
It's So Hard for Republicans to Win in Illinois,
quotes Southern Illinois University Professor of Political Science
John Jackson who cites the loss of unions and their influence in the
region as a major factor in the loss of Democratic Party strength.
"The same thing that’s happened to the South has happened
here, though ours came more recently," Jackson said.
Another type of
analysis involves culture and the very early days of the state. Go
back far enough and the most southern counties were clearly more
aligned with pro-slavery attitudes and less progressive
policies than those to the north.
Consider this
description of the state's southern-most county, Alexander County:
"Settled largely by white migrants from the Upland South,
southern Illinois had many racial attitudes of the South. As African
Americans settled in Cairo to seek jobs on steamboats, ferries, in
shipping and railroads, there were tensions between the racial
groups. White residents sometimes used violence and terrorism, as
well as discrimination, to keep black residents in second-class
positions. They excluded them from the city government and the police
and fire departments, and relatively few African Americans were hired
to work in the local stores . . . There were three lynchings of
blacks in Alexander County in the years between Reconstruction and
the early 20th century. The county had the second-highest number of
lynchings of African Americans in all of Illinois."
Mary Bohlten,
writing for Illinois Times about touring the National
Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, states: "When
I toured the museum and memorial last spring, I was disheartened to
realize Illinois had 56 documented lynchings from 1877 to 1950. St.
Clair County had the most with 40, but Sangamon County had two,
associated with the 1908 race riots. Deep southern Illinois counties
had lynchings but so did Cook, Macon, Marshall and Vermillion. So did
such states as Oregon, California, North Dakota, Michigan and Trump’s
native New York."
Increased
mobility across the nation has been cited as another factor in
increased polarization, and in the concentration of residents of like
mind. Speaking in 2014, NPR Correspondent Shankar Vedantam had
this to say about the relationship between geography and ideology:
"There's new research now that links the red state/blue state
phenomenon with the fact that 40 to 50 million Americans move every
year. So we are an increasingly mobile society," Vedantam
explained, citing research by University of Virginia Psychologist
Brian Nosek showing that liberals and conservatives tend to migrate
to areas that are more aligned with their own ideology. "The
downside is that if this mobility phenomenon is real, it means that
the more mobile we get as a society, the more polarized we're going
to become. Red states are going to get redder. Blue states are going
to get bluer. The United States is going to get less united."
Reform and change is good, but what are we supposed to make of the
kind of radical, norm-breaking presidency we've just lived through,
apparently supported by a large number of residents in Southern
Illinois? I suppose we should continue to expect the unexpected. The
irony is that while the Republicans in downstate Illinois fixate on
what they see as "corrupt and irresponsible Democrats,"
they've all but climbed in bed with one of the most corrupt and
irresponsible Republican presidents in our nation's history. Who
their next reactionary leader will be, and how extreme they'll be, is
anybody's guess.
Graph Data Sources
Statistical Atlas (educational/income/ethnicity data)
Politico (2020 election results per county)
Politico (2016 election results per county)
Wikipedia (county population data)
270towin (national and state election results)
