How Will IL Vote For President?

ILLINOIS —Election Day is Tuesday, and results here should soon show if voters, for the ninth election in a row, have selected a Democratic candidate for president.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Republican former President Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy all appear on voters' ballots this presidential election, but Kennedy dropped out of the race in August and has since endorsed Trump.

The last time Illinois picked a Republican candidate for president was in 1988, when George W. Bush won the election over Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis.

In recent weeks, Democratic Kamala Harris has led Illinois polls by a double-digit margin.

In 2020, President Joe Biden won with a 17-point margin over Trump in Illinois, claiming 57.54 percent of the vote over Trump's 40.55 percent. In 2016, Hillary Clinton also won Illinois by a nearly 17-point victory, though she lost the election.

During the Democratic National Convention, which was held in Chicago in August, Harris formally accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president. Since then, Harris has seen a long list of Illinois politicians backing her.

On the second night of the DNC in Chicago, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker gave a fiery speech, taking shots at Trump's wealth and also touting Harris' ties to Illinois.

"Illinois' presidential history is unmatched," said Pritzker, referencing former President Abraham Lincoln uniting "a house divided" during the Civil War and former President Barack Obama bringing together red and blue states.

Though Harris hails from California, she spent several years in Illinois as a child, when her parents worked at the University of Illinois in Urbana and later Northwestern University in Evanston.

"I speak for the entire Illinois delegation when we say, we claim her too," Pritzker said.

Harris acknowledged her time in Illinois as she accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president in Chicago. She also spoke of her upbringing and how her parents shaped her.

"At the park, my mother would tell us to stay close. But my father would just smile, and say, 'Run, Kamala. Run.' 'Don’t be afraid.' 'Don’t let anything stop you.' From my earliest years, he taught me to be fearless," Harris said at the DNC.

Harris said her mother also taught her to do something about injustice.

"My mother was a brilliant, five-foot-tall, brown woman with an accent. And, as the eldest child, I saw how the world would sometimes treat her. But she never lost her cool. She was tough, courageous, a trailblazer in the fight for women’s health," Harris said.

"She also taught us, 'never do anything half-assed,'" she added. "That’s a direct quote."

Harris' family spent a short time in Illinois, living at 620 Library Place in Evanston, after her father took a job at nearby Northwestern University for the 1967-68 academic year. She was 3 years old at the time.

Her father, Donald Harris, served as a visiting assistant professor of economics at Northwestern, while her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, worked in the university’s Biological Sciences Department.

• Pritzker Touts Harris' IL Ties, Obama Slams Trump's 'Weird Obsession' At DNC
• Kamala Harris’ Evanston Home Now Houses Northwestern's African Studies Program

Prior to moving to Northwestern, the family lived in Champaign for a year while both Harris and Gopalan worked at the University of Illinois.

The family’s stay at the Library Place home was short-lived, as they moved to Madison, Wisconsin, the following year.

Harris could join four other U.S. presidents who have called Illinois home. Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln all lived here. Only Reagan was born in Illinois.

If Harris wins Illinois, it'll be the ninth presidential election in a row where the state has picked a Democratic candidate. And while it has become a solid blue state, it hasn't always been that way.

Between 1900 and 2020, Illinois picked a Democratic candidate 51.6 percent of the time, but Republican candidates have been selected 48.4 percent of the time. Meanwhile, Illinois voted for a winning presidential candidate 83.9 percent of the time during that same time frame, according to ballotpedia.com.

Polls in recent days showed Harris leading by a 16-point advantage over Trump in Illinois, with FiveThirtyEight predicting Harris taking the state with 58 percent of the vote over Trump's 42 percent.