Where the votes are: Illinois' presidential primaries

Super Tuesday on March 8 means presidential primaries and caucuses in 20 states including 14 southern states. In 1984 there was no March Super Tuesday: Just five states had primaries one week after the New Hampshire primaries and one week before the Illinois primaries, which was pivotal for Democrats. This year Illinois' primaries are still the first of any northern industrial state and remain an important domino in the chain of successes needed to achieve the presidential nomination.

With 173 Democratic delegates and 92 Republican delegates at stake in Illinois, the March 15 primary here could help sew up the nomination in either party — even in a crowded Democratic field. The primary will decide 42.1 percent of the Democratic convention delegates and 54.9 percent of the Republican delegates.

In the past, Illinois primary voters have sometimes been reactive; their choice of a candidate seems to be influenced by successes scored in New Hampshire, based on comparing early Illinois polls to Illinois election results). Success in Illinois his contributed to the momentum of some candidates (Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Ronald Reagan in 1980) but was a turning point for Walter Mondale in 1984. In the last four presidential primaries favorite-son status has not seemed to help any candidate in Illinois.

Since past results may help explain the final results of the Illinois 1988 primaries, this column will explain where votes have come from in the state. The distribution of Democratic and Republican ballots cast across the state are shown in table 1 for the last four presidential year primaries (1972 was the year the primary system in Illinois was opened up after a federal district court ruling in Kusper v. Pontikes found unconstitutional a statute that prohibited voting in one party's primary if a voter had voted in another primary during the preceding 23 months).

Since Chicago has a much higher Democratic primary turnout than the rest of the state, its 25 percent share of the state's voters contributes about half of the votes in Democratic primaries. When these city results are combined with suburban Cook County results, the county's total generally exceeds 60 percent of the state's Democratic primary vote.

Republican primary voting is much less concentrated in any one area. Outside of Chicago (where Republican turnout is low) voter turnout is fairly uniform for Republican primaries.

As a percentage of registered voters, the turnout for Illinois primaries is highest in Chicago, where one in two of registered voters can be expected to vote in a presidential primary.

Turnout by region and party appear similar since 1972 except for 1980. That was

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an unusual year. In 1980 Democrats were limed off by both incumbent Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy, and some turned to Republican choices (Reagan, George Bush mdJohnB. Anderson). Democratic turn-j out in Chicago was slightly down in 1980 (under 50 percent), and Republican turnout went to a high of 7.4 percent. That year in all other parts of the state Republican mrnout exceeded Democratic primary turnout.

A primary in Chicago is sometimes called a precinct captain's election and may explain its exceptionally high turnout. Our 1984 Cook County exit poll found that 44 percent of all voters had been contacted by a precinct captain or worker prior to that election. This ranged in the city from a high of about 60 percent in the ethnic wards to 43 percent in the black wards to alow of 14 percent in the lakefront wards. In Cook County suburban townships it was 21 percent. An analysis of 1984 city ward data reveals the wards most important to a Democratic primary for the votes they produce (see table 3). These wards cast a minimum of 22,000 ballots or over 1 percent of the total state Democratic ballots. Near the top of the ranking is Acting Mayor Eugene Sawyer's 6th Ward.

The 1984 Illinois primary outcome is especially interesting on the eve of the 1988 Democratic primary. Candidates in that statewide primary featured three candidates who are 1988 Democratic presidential hopefuls: Gary Hart and two favorite sons, Jesse Jackson and Paul Simon. In 1984 Simon ran in a four-way race and won the nomination to the U.S. Senate. In the 1984 presidential primary Hart beat Mondale outside of Cook County but lost decisively where most of the votes were cast — in Chicago. Jackson, in his first presidential bid, got one-third of Chicago's votes which meant convention delegates from some of the city's congressional districts. Simon's strength for his Senate nomination came from downstate.

Illinois has had favorite-son candidates in the last three presidential primaries: Democrat R. Sargent Shriver in 1976 (Shriver had been George McGovern's running mate in 1972), Republican John B. Anderson in 1980 (although he later became an independent candidate), and Democrat Jesse Jackson in 1984. But has this favorite-son status meant much in Illinois? It appears that Illinois voters seem to respond more to a candidate's success in earlier primaries of other states than to his ties to Illinois:

• In 1976 Shriver led in Illinois polls conducted before the New Hampshire primary, but Carter grabbed the lead afterwards and ended up winning by 20 points ahead of runner-up George Wallace.
• In 1980 Anderson was leading with as much as 39 percent as late as March 8 in the polls, but Reagan won Illinois 10 days later with 49 percent to Anderson's 37 percent of the vote.
• In 1984 Jackson ran second in all early Illinois polls but finished a poor third in the primary after Hart won New Hampshire.

In 1988 Illinois has no Republican favorite-son presidential candidates, but it has two in the Democratic primary. If one of them wins in Illinois, the trend would be reversed.□

Nick Panagakis is president of Market Shares Corporation, a marketing and public opinion research firm heardquartered in Mount Prospect.

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