See How IL Counties Voted In Trump Vs. Harris Race

ILLINOIS, IL — While Democrats won big across Illinois on Election Night, and Vice President Kamala Harris became the ninth straight Democratic presidential candidate to take Illinois, it was former President Donald Trump who won the contest nationwide.

Despite having a mixed voting history — since 1900, Illinois has chosen a Republican presidential candidate 15 times and a Democratic candidate 17 times — Illinois has long been thought of as a Democratic stronghold.

For decades, the Land of Lincoln has gone reliably blue on Election Night, largely due to heavy concentrations of Democratic voters in Cook and some surrounding counties — and a largely Democratic City of Chicago.

The contrast between how the Chicago area tends to vote and the Republican voting trends in other parts of the state have even drawn calls for forming a "New Illinois" by removing Cook County. In fact, on Tuesday night, seven counties outside the Chicago area voted yes on a measure to consider splitting from Chicago and Cook County.

Voters in those seven counties — Iroquois County, Calhoun County, Clinton County, Green County, Jersey County, Madison County, and Perry County — joined those in more than 20 other counties that voted in favor of similar measures in 2020 and 2022.

Harris won Illinois' 19 electoral votes on Tuesday, defeating Trump with 53.3 percent of the vote, to Trump's 45.3 percent. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was also on Illinois ballots despite dropping out of the race in August, garnering only 1.4 percent of the vote.

So how did counties outside of Cook vote for president on Tuesday?

Most of the counties surrounding Cook and the city of Chicago went in Harris' favor — although some only by a slight margin. In Kendall County, Harris won with 49.48 percent of the vote to Trump's 48.12 percent, and a difference of just 900 votes, according to unofficial election results.

It was a similarly small margin of victory for Harris in Will County, where Harris captured 49.13 percent of the vote to Trump's 48.4 percent, winning by a margin of 2,311 votes, according to unofficial totals.

Trump, on the other hand, had a fairly large margin of victory in nearby Grundy County, capturing 64.2 percent of the vote to Harris' 34.3 percent, winning by more than 7,800 votes in the county. For comparison, Harris won Cook County by a smaller margin, getting just under 62 percent of the vote to Trump's 36.78 percent.

Trump was also voters' choice in far northern McHenry County, capturing 52.6 percent of the vote compared to Harris' 45.94 percent, and winning by more than 10,400 votes, according to unofficial results.

Here's a look at how the vote broke down across the Chicago area:

More Illinois Voting Trends

While northern Illinois is often thought of as a Democratic stronghold, several counties in the area went red in favor of Trump Tuesday night.

Multiple counties, including Kankakee, LaSalle, Winnebago, Jo Daviess, Boone and Ogle went to Trump and running mate JD Vance.

Central and Southern Illinois went largely red. In Wayne County, for example, Trump captured nearly 85 percent of the vote to Harris' 13.9 percent.

But some counties in Central and Southern Illinois went in Harris' favor, including Champaign, Peoria, Rock Island, St. Clair, McLean and Jackson.

You can see how Trump and Harris fared statewide using this map.

Stacking Up To 2020

Harris won Illinois by a margin of 53.4 percent to Trump's 45.2 percent, or a difference of 432,819 votes, according to unofficial totals.

That's a slimmer margin than 2020, when President Joe Biden won Illinois by 55.6 percent of the vote to Trump's 42.6 percent, or by nearly 700,000 votes.

In 2020, Biden also captured the "Blue Wall" states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania – all states Harris lost in 2024.

Harris also got a smaller share of electoral votes from Illinois than Biden got, winning just 19 in the Prairie State. Thanks to lower population growth than the rest of the country, this year was the first presidential election since 1868 in which Illinois has not had 20 or more electoral votes.