Hillary Clinton Wins Illinois in the 11th Hour

By Dennis Robaugh and Tim Moran

Hillary Clinton, with 1,002,832 votes, won Illinois with 50.4 percent of the vote in the March 15 primary, with 99 percent of votes tallied according to unofficial returns. Her opponent, Bernie Sanders, who'd closed a large polling gap in recent days, took 968,227 votes for 48.7 percent.

Fewer than 40,000 votes separate the two. Almost 2 million votes were cast in the Democratic primary, almost double the number of votes cast in the Republican primary.

CNN finally projected her as the winner literally in the 11th hour, just after 11:30 p.m. Her own campaign believed she might lose Illinois, where Sanders' message resonated with urban and progressive Democrats.

“Hillary is not a very good candidate, although she may make a good president," Rob Shapiro, professor of political science at Saint Xavier University on the South Side of Chicago, told Patch Tuesday night. “She has had a lot of difficulty dealing with Sanders and sometimes does not know what to do about him.

“But she’s hit on some of the same themes he has and finally has figured out how to deal with it.”

With the Illinois victory, Clinton secures 68 delegates and Sanders pockets 64 delegates. Clinton won four contests Tuesday night, including Ohio, Florida and North Carolina.

Voter turnout in Chicago was over 50 percent, according to the Chicago Election Board, and 26,000 new voters registered to vote on Primary Day. The surge in voter participation could be attributed to the effort to oust the incumbent Democratic state’s attorney, Anita Alvarez, whose handling of police shooting cases has been criticized by activists and community groups who wanted her to resign.

This may have had implications for Clinton. Many of those who registered late also were young voters and possibly landed in the Sanders column when all the Chicago votes are counted.

Still, the city of Chicago provided Clinton with her margin of victory. Clinton secured 362,161 votes in Chicago to Sanders' 307,121.

In some suburban counties, precincts ran out of Democratic ballots, too, and more needed to be printed.

Sanders' message seems to have resonated with Illinois Democrats.

“In some instances, not all obviously, Sanders touches the same type of people that are supportive of Donald Trump. He’s obviously not garnering to the angry right-wing voters, but this other mass of voters looking for someone who can speak for them," Shapiro said.

Shapiro expected Clinton to win Illinois and believes the fact she took up similar themes as Sanders helped her campaign. Clinton campaign insiders told CNN they felt Clinton could lose Illinois as she did Michigan. They were not optimistic, yet she pulled out a win.

“Illinois has always been a blue state," Shapiro said, "not just by voting Democratic, but by voting for the establishment candidate."

A loss in the state where she was born and raised would not have denied her the nomination, but it would have been embarrassing.

• Illinois Falls for Donald Trump: GOP Primary

Born in Chicago, raised in Park Ridge, a former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state steeped in experience, Clinton could make history yet again if she secures the nomination and wins the White House in the fall.

Sanders, the insurgent Vermont senator decrying the influence of Wall Street money in American politics, offers a markedly different agenda, one rooted in his socialist ideals. Once a University of Chicago student and political activist in the 1960s, Sanders' popularity in Illinois has grown tremendously in recent weeks.

Check Patch for primary updates:

• Local Primary Election Results

• Primary Results for Florida, Missouri, Ohio and North Carolina

A few weeks ago, Hillary Clinton held a significant lead over Bernie Sanders in every Illinois poll of likely Democratic voters. In recent days, however, her margin of preference has narrowed.

The Real Clear Politics poll average has Clinton leading Sanders by 2.3 points, with 48.3 percent of the vote to Sanders' 46 percent.

Though Clinton leads in the delegate count, she would prefer to nail the door shut on Sanders sooner rather than later. Clinton also outraised Sanders among individual donors in Illinois by a 4:1 ratio, while Sanders had 40 percent more individual donations in Illinois than Clinton.

The intensity of the March 15 presidential primaries, including the one here in Illinois, is reflected in the flurry of campaign stops and stump speeches made in the days and hours before the polls opened.

The Clinton campaign would like to avoid a repeat in Illinois of what happened in Michigan last week, where Sanders pulled off a close upset. The narrowing poll numbers in Illinois were a sign that Sanders' was gaining traction.

Both Sanders and Clinton were in Chicago. And Bill Clinton, ever the enthusiastic campaigner, was here, too. He stopped outside the polling place at Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School in Hyde Park, where he posed for photos.

“Chicago has been really good to me and our family. I love coming here and I thought it would the best place to be on Election Day," Bill Clinton said.

Hillary Clinton appeared at a rally at Chicago's Plumber’s Union Hall then hop-scotched around the South Side and West Side on Monday.

Clinton stopped in Pilsen, a community with a large Hispanic immigrant population. She took a dig at Donald Trump, who's vowed to build a wall between the United States and Mexico.

"Please tell everyone that we have to have a good vote tomorrow to send a strong message that love trumps hate,” Clinton told voters there.

Sanders was at Roosevelt University late Monday night for a town-hall gathering, where he slammed Chicago's mayor and tied him to Hillary Clinton. Thousands of people showed up for that rally, as well as one in the south suburbs on Friday night.

“Let me say, I want to thank Rahm Emanuel for not endorsing me," Sanders said. "I don’t want his endorsement."

The African-American community has demanded Emanuel resign as revelations in the Laquan McDonald police shooting case have come to light. Sanders hammered on Clinton's longtime association with Emanuel, and their connections to Wall Street and establishment politics. He saw a potential opening for peeling off black voters who've historically supported the Clintons.

Hillary Clinton, however, has spent a lot of time campaigning with black mothers who've lost their children to violence. In December, she declared her support for federal investigation of the Chicago Police Department after the Laquan McDonald video went public. Earlier this year, she secured the endorsement of Geneva Reed-Veal, whose daughter Sandra Bland, of Naperville, was found dead in in a Texas jail cell. On Tuesday, Michael Brown, the young black man killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, also endorsed Clinton.

This week, Clinton visited the Kids Off the Block Memorial, decicated to children lost to gun violence in Chicago.

In the suburbs, traditionally GOP strongholds, several polling places were running out of Democratic ballots. In Kendall County, a bastion of conservative Republicans, the clerk had to print more Democratic ballots for several polling places.

In Frankfort, also an historically Republican suburb, long lines at the polls were an unusual site, but not as unusual as the number of requests for a Democratic ballot.

Still, gaining voters in the suburbs would be a uphill fight for Clinton — even in the one where she grew up.

Hillary Clinton was born in Chicago and grew up in Park Ridge. The walls of Maine East and Maine South high schools feature photographs that honor her career and accomplishments as first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

Though she is the frontrunner in her race for the presidential nomination, her childhood home isn't exactly giddy about her history-making run.

Mary Wynn Ryan tried to get a park named for Clinton last year, but the town skews Republican and that idea flopped.

"The fact this person is a product of our schools, churches and family values shows what's possible for someone who is raised in this town," Ryan told the Chicago Tribune. "I think we should be proud and make something of this."

More than a park, however, Clinton would be happier to have more votes.

She won one, Tuesday, from a young Park Ridge woman voting in her first election. Sarah Hands, 20, voted at the polling place in Field Elementary School, the very school Clinton attended as a little girl.

"I think it would be kind of cool if we had a president from here," Hands said.