Will any state beat Illinois's percentage for Kerry?

[Inland]

Sorry, DC, we can't count you, an unfairly small sample.

[Slamby2002]

1. Illinois has the highest percentage?

What is it? What is it in Mass?

[Inland]

2. Land of Lincoln calls out Mass!

[Rich Hunt]

3. sure looks like it so far

...the bluest of the blue.

[Pablo420]

4. New State Slogan!

Illinois: The Bluest of the Blue!

I Effen LOVE IT!

*Go Kerry!*

[newyawker99]

11. Hi Pablo Esquandolis!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[carpe diem]

5. if this thing doesn't go the way we want nationally...

...can those of us in red states move to Illinois and secede from the union?

[chicagojoe]

8. We're working on that as I speak.

And as one of our first acts as a sovreign nation will be to deport
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. He will be declared as an Al Bushii combatant.
Plus, we'll still have the best pizza in the world.

[ComerPerro]

6. I am reminded of Jon Stewart tonight

"Senator Kerry, apparently riding on the coattails of Barak Obama"

[chicagojoe]

7. A couple of Illinois numbers.

In Cook County alone, 1.4 million people voted for John Kerry.
In the same county, only 600,000 voted for the Chimp.

[TedsGarage]

9. Blue in New England

I believe Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont trumped us.

[ISUGRADIA]

10. Top Kerry States

Mass 62%

RI 60%

VT 59%

NY 58%

ML 56%

Illinois 55%

[vireo]

12. Here's what I don't get

I was just checking out the IL election results and while Kerry's % matched Gore's from 2000 (was .1% better to be precise) Kerry did worse than Gore in 78 of the state's 102 counties.

In those counties, on average, Kerry's vote was 3.15% less than Gore's. I realize that the Kerry campaign had little presence in the state (in contrast to my state of WI) but do these results seem right?

What I'm wondering is if this indicates vote siphoning intended to pad Bush's totals in support of his phony mandate.

[Tweed]

13. Here's the explanation

The Kerry team did not have as much money as the Bush team. When the Bush team ran ads, they made national buys. The Kerry team made local buys focusing on battleground states. You saw more Bush commercials if you lived in Illinois period. You probably went without seeing any Kerry commercials especially if you live away from he Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri borders. Bush picked up some 'junk' points because his commercials were unanswered. Isolated rural people who have only right-wing radio, cable news and Bush commercials to rely on for their election information are probably going to vote for Bush.

Add on to this the fact that the top two races in Illinois were decided the day Barack Obama was nominated and you have another factor to weigh in.

[Radical Activist]

14. Bush had a rural voter strategy

it appealed to rural voters and evangelical Christians, which are more numerous in downstate Illinois. This proves that the rural/religious strategy works in blue states as well as red states. The Republican party has being courting rural voters for years while Democrats have ignored them. This is the result.

It's also true that the Bush campaign spent a lot more money in Illinois than the Illinois Kerry campaign which had very little presence in downstate due to lack of staff and resources here.

[tritsofme]

15. It was my understanding

That the Bush camp never so much as opened a campaign office in IL.

[Radical Activist]

17. They did and

they spent a good deal of money downstate. Mostly on signs and bumper stickers. They didn't exactly advertise their campaign headquarters. It was mostly to boost GOP candidates at the state and local level. It would be nice if the DNC did that more often.

[Norquist Nemesis]

16. We still have soooo much work to do here in IL *sigh*

Here's a map of the results by county. Thank the good Lord for those densely populated areas.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/IL/P/00/index.html