NEW IPO Logo - by Charles Larry Home Search Browse About IPO Staff Links


The Pulse



Illinois' close presidential election



By NICK PANAGAKIS


ii890134-1.jpg

On November 8, George Bush won Illinois by 94,999 votes. This was the sixth consecutive Illinois win by a Republican presidential candidate during the last 20 years. Bush's two percentage point win represents a smaller winning vote margin than Ford's over Carter here in 1976.

Although he lost Illinois, Michael Dukakis met or exceeded percentage margins of past, near successful or narrowly successful statewide Democratic candidates in major state areas, such as suburban Cook County. But candidates like Adlai E. Stevenson III for governor in 1982 and Paul Simon for U.S. senator in 1984 also carried Cook County by 312,000 and 318,000 votes, respectively. Dukakis was 65,000 votes under these margins in Cook County.

Based on official returns available in time for this column, a major voting decline is evident in Chicago. The city accounted for 23.6 percent of statewide votes in November, down from 25 percent in past presidential election years. Chicago's final registration tally of 1,556,372 ended up 38,423 voters short of November 1984.

This means that a change in the distribution or mix of voters in the state attributed to Dukakis' narrow loss.

But voter registration decline in Chicago was not the only problem since much of the decline can be traced to 17 white ethnic wards with higher Republican voting records than other city wards. Turnout in the 19 black wards was a low 64.5 percent of registered voters in Novermber, about 10 points under 1984 and even below the 1982 off-year election. Dukakis won 95.5 percent of the black ward vote but due to lower turnout got 40,483 fewer votes than Mondale in 1984 in black wards. Low black turnout cut Dukakis' Cook County margin significantly.

In the March primary, Chicago was down 123,767 voters compared to its November 1984 level. Democrats added 85,344 new Chicago voters between the 1988 primary and general elections; these were mostly in black and lakefront wards to bring these safely Democratic areas up to 1984 levels.

Cook County Republicans were more ambitious. In March the county's suburbs (everything outside Chicago) were down 45,862 voters from 1984. By November they were 47,759 ahead for a gain of 93,621 since March. Republicans started

Voter registration and turnout, Cook County, by area, 1982, 1984, 1988
  November 1982
November 1984
November 1988
 registered votersballots castturnout registered votersballots castturnout registered votersballots castturnout
TOTAL COUNTY 2,709,5281,815,14267.0% 2,879,1822,262,10378.6% 2,888,5182,095,98572.6%
TOTAL CHICAGO* 1,549,0841,061,42368.5% 1,594,7951,247,63078.2% 1,556,3721,114,08071.6%
White ethnic wards 560,088404,15872.2% 585,288482,91082.5% 548,657427,83578.0%
Lakefront wards 182,269121,92366.9% 202,773163,55480.7% 202,695155.08476.5%
Black wards 612,830399,64565.2% 615,727456,07374.1% 614,442396,35264.5%
Hispanic wards 79,89854,55268.3% 73,67953,19372.2% 72,25543,94160.8%
Racially mixed wards 113,99979,53369.8% 117,32890,65977.3% 118,32385,93672.6%
TOTAL SUBURBAN 1,160,444753,71965.0% 1,284,3871,014,47379.0% 1,332,146981,90573.7%
Northwest townships 205,677123,75660.2% 245,612194.96079.4% 279,643206,72173.9%
Northeast townships 258,936175,12567.6% 280,656228,69981.5% 281,030219,28778.0%
West townships 332,893220,51866.2% 359,508280,11477.9% 357,585258,83172.4%
South townships 362,938234,32064.6% 398,611310,70077.9% 413,888297,06671.8%
*Chicago totals include absentee ballots

34 | January 1989 | Illinois Issues


Democratic vote in Cook County by areas for major candidates (president, U.S. senator, governor), 1980-1988
(minor party candidates excluded from base
 1980
Carter
1982
Stevenson
1984
Mondale
1984
Simon
1986
Dixon
1986
Stevenson*
1988
Dukakis
TOTAL COUNTY 52.8%59.1% 51.3%57.5%74.0% 54.4%56.3%
TOTAL CHICAGO 68.5% 73.7%65.3%69.7% 84.7%67.6%69.9%
White ethnic wards 53.1% 59.5%42.9%53.0% 76.8%50.7%49.2%
Lakefront wards 55.5% 64.2%58.3%63.6% 77.9%58.0%63.6%
Black wards 92.4% 90.0%93.2%90.6% 96.7%92.3%95.5%
Hispanic wards 78.1% 83.8%67.1%69.7% 87.9%71.7%77.4%
Racially mixed wards 68.8% 72.7%61.8%67.1% 83.9%64.9%66.0%
TOTAL SUBURBAN 34.5% 39.0%34.6%42.9% 60.5%37.7%41.1%
Northwest townships 25.7%28.7%23.8% 31.8%51.6%27.1% 31.1%
Northeast townships 34.6% 39.8%39.1%47.5% 63.0%40.2%46.2%
West townships 37.6% 42.5%36.2%44.0% 61.6%41.1%43.9%
South townships 37.0% 40.7%36.7%45.4% 62.5%38.6%42.0%
*Includes Solidarity Party candidate Stevenson's votes and Democratic "no candidate" votes.

their voter registration drive earlier than Democrats. Both targeted their efforts. Of the 93,621 Republican increase, 40,499 came from the northwest panhandle section of the county which routinely votes 70 percent-75 percent Republican.

A Democratic candidate getting 58 percent of the Cook County vote would normally mean a statewide win assuming a reasonably good performance in the 96 downstate counties. Dukakis got 56.3 of Cook County. His short-fall to poor black turnout and failure to win a majority of the white ethic wards.

In the 17 white ethnic wards, turnout was 4.5 points under 1984, in line with the decline seen elsewhere in the state. Dukakis got 49.2 percent of the white ethnic vote, but a majority of votes in these wards is another threshold needed for a Democrat to win statewide. The half million voters in these wards must contribute to a Democrat's winning margin, not take away from it.

Before the Democratic convention, our poll for the Chicago Tribune showed Dukakis getting 59 percent in Cook County with the potential for more support from undecided voters. At that time the Bush campaign publicly vowed to increase Dukakis' negative rating above that of Bush, a "lesser of evils" strategy. They concentrated on social issues and the target was Reagan Democrats, the kind of Democrats who live in the white ethnic wards of Chicago.

By October 22-23, our Tribune poll showed Dukakis down to 54 percent in Cook County, and his unfavorable rating among all city white voters had increased from 18 percent to 28 percent.

Social issues like the Pledge of Allegiance, ACLU membership and prison furloughs, were raised in the campaign, issues which will not be heard again for at least four more years. State Republican mailings said that John Wayne Gacy would be out on furlough if he were in a Massachusetts prison, and provoked objections from Gacy himself from his Illinois prison. Illinois Republicans ran the kind of campaign that even John Wayne Gacy found offensive.

Bush carried suburban Cook County by 168,890 votes, a margin nearer to Gov. James R. Thompson's in his 1982 close win than to Reagan's in 1984 or even 1980.

An important component in Bush's winning margin was the county's northwest townships, the site of the voter registration drive. In 1988, 11,761 more ballots were cast there than in 1984. The area gave 76,270 more votes to Bush than Dukakis and was the only county area with increased voting over 1984.□

Nick Panagakis is president of Market Shares Corporation, a marketing and public opinion research firm headquartered in Mount Prospect. Panagakis, a member of the National Council on Public Polls, has done pre-election and exit polls for news media in Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin: WBBM-TV (1974-1985) and the Chicago Tribune since 1987; KMOV-TV in St. Louis (1980-1986) and the Kansas City Times & Star and KCTV since 1988; and WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee since 1986.


January 1989 | Illinois Issues | 35


|Home| |Search| |Back to Periodicals Available| |Table of Contents| |Back to Illinois Issues 1989|
Illinois Periodicals Online (IPO) is a digital imaging project at the Northern Illinois University Libraries funded by the Illinois State Library