As promised I have the updated quick glance and scorecards for the 6 targeted congressional districts in Illinois with the exception of some of the data in IL-17. The Peoria and Tazewell county clerks have not yet published their precinct-level election returns for 2012GE so I haven't yet been able to pull the Presidential race and turnout info for that district, I'll update everything once that data is available. Since everything else was ready I saw no need to delay publishing this. As always, you can find this data in the VOTE ANALYSIS section.

Take a look at the table below. The first three column in the table show the Dem Perf/Rep Perf/Diff for the congressional race and then the last three columns show the Dem Perf/Rep Perf/Diff for the Presidential race:

Cong DCong RDiff ObamaRomneyDiff
IL-0854.74%45.26%D +09.48 57.35%40.97%D +16.38
IL-1050.63%49.37%D +01.25 57.47%41.19%D +16.28
IL-1158.39%41.31%D +17.08 57.32%40.95%D +16.37
IL-1251.65%42.74%D +08.91 49.62%48.17%D +01.44
IL-1346.21%46.55%R +00.34 48.26%49.19%R +00.93
IL-1753.28%46.72%D +06.55 N/AN/AN/A

A few things jump out at me:

  • In IL-08 Obama did about two and a half points better than Duckworth while Walsh did more than 4 points better than Romney. As you can see from the Obama statewide numbers he may have done poorly downstate but he was surprisingly strong in the collar counties.
  • In IL-10 Obama was almost 7 points better than Schneider and Dold was more than 8 points better than Romney. As previously noted Obama ran well in the suburbs but it's also hard not to conclude that Dold just ran very well as a Republican in a Democrat-friendly district.
  • In IL-11 there was little difference between the congressional race and the presidential race, Foster ran about a point stronger than Obama while Biggert was about four tenths of a point stronger than Romney. The two races basically mirrored each other so it doesn't appear any of the four candidates enjoyed a local advantage.
  • I previously noted that Obama ran much poorer than Democratic State Senate candidates in downstate districts, particularly in the southern half of the state so it's no surprise that in IL-12 Enyart was 2 points stronger than Obama, however it is somewhat a surprise that Plummer ran about five and a half points worse than Romney. While Enyart didn't get into the race until well after the primary when the Democratic nominee withdrew Plummer was the early choice of the local party faithful, was independently wealthy and came from a family with strong business ties to the area so he was expected to be a strong contender for this seat but for whatever reason he didn't perform up to expectations. Plummer lost his race by almost 9 points in a district Obama only won by about a point and a half. Maybe it wasn't winnable for Plummer if Romney couldn't best Obama who struggled downstate but I'm still surprised this wasn't closer.
  • IL-13 was the closest of the targeted races for both the congressional race and the presidential race. Most notable about this race was that independent 3rd party candidate John Hartman from Edwardsville took 7.24% of the vote in a race where Republican Rodney Davis edged Democrat David Gill by 0.34% overall. The presidential race wasn't much different, Romney edged Obama by just under a point. This was the most Republican leaning of the 6 targeted congressional districts so it's no surprise that this was the district where the Republicans performed the best.
  • I noted previously that Obama ran particularly well in the Quad Cities media market where some of the northwestern Illinois counties were exposed to the same advertising that voters in eastern Iowa saw. I don't yet have districtwide totals for the presidential race because two election authorities don't yet have their precinct-level vote totals published but if you look at the counties that we do have data for you'll notice that it appears that Obama ran much stronger than Bustos did, and Bustos won her race by six and half points. This strong showing at the top of the ticket helps explain why Democratic State Senator Mike Jacobs was able to win reelection by almost 10 points in the 36th senate district despite pre-election polls that showed him far behind.

For quick comparison by district to past races here's the Quick Glance:

IL-08IL-10IL-11IL-12IL-13IL-17Statewide
12CONGD +09.48D +01.25D +17.08D +08.91R +00.34D +06.55 
12PRESD +16.38D +16.28D +16.37D +01.44R +00.93 D +16.87
10SENR +11.33R +12.79R +06.28R +08.52R +18.72R +14.84R +01.59
10GOVR +07.64R +00.93R +03.96R +06.08R +19.99R +14.59D +00.69
10AGD +27.10D +30.96D +29.26D +19.73D +18.25D +22.90D +33.07
10SOSD +39.33D +41.61D +41.56D +27.14D +28.91D +33.39D +42.85
10COMPR +26.34R +21.08R +18.49R +10.04R +24.79R +16.74R +11.74
10TREASR +19.11R +13.19R +12.39R +04.70R +19.97R +09.76R +04.42
08PRESD +21.18D +25.57D +21.32D +10.99D +09.31D +19.37D +25.14
08SEND +34.08D +37.08D +33.53D +30.06D +29.97D +35.27D +39.31
06GOV D +08.28 D +14.74 D +08.31D +10.55
06AG D +51.06 D +33.62 D +32.84D +48.20
06SOS D +32.87 D +24.01 D +24.23D +29.79
06COMP D +30.45 D +27.21 D +27.33D +32.76
06TREAS D +09.18 D +11.67 D +10.53D +12.70
04PRES   D +02.57 D +06.20D +10.34
04SEN   D +33.15 D +38.42D +42.92

And as always you can find the full scorecards for each district by clicking on VOTE ANALYSIS on the top toolbar and then scrolling down to "Congressional District Analysis" or just follow this direct link.

If you find an error or you think something might be wrong let me know. In order to compile this data I have to aggregate data from many different sources and then try and format it so that it all fits together. There's a lot of copying and pasting involved and even though I check and doublecheck for mistakes they're still pretty easy to make.


© Illinois Electon Data