2004 United States presidential election in Illinois


The 2004 United States presidential election in Illinois took place on November 2, 2004, and was part of the 2004 United States presidential election. Voters chose 21 representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Illinois was won by Democratic nominee John Kerry by a 10.3% margin of victory. Prior to the election, all 12 news organizations considered this a state Kerry would win, or otherwise considered as a safe blue state. A reliable blue state that no Republican has won since Bush's father George H. W. Bush in 1988, voted for Democratic Senator John Kerry in 2004 with almost 55% of the vote.
Kerry's victory in Illinois was primarily due to carrying seventy percent of the vote in the Chicago area's Cook County, where about 43% of Illinois' population resides. Amongst the remaining 57% of the population, President George W. Bush won 54.6% to 45.3%. President Bush was victorious in Chicago's collar counties, although the results in those counties were narrower than his victories downstate., this is the last presidential election that a Democrat failed to carry any of Chicago's collar counties.

Election information

The primaries and general elections coincided with those for Senate and congress, as well as those for state offices.

Turnout

For the state-run primaries, turnout was 25.23%, with 1,801,090 votes cast. For the general election, turnout was 70.33%, with 5,274,322 votes cast.

Primaries

Democratic

The 2004 Illinois Democratic -presidential primary was held on March 16 in the U.S. state of Illinois as one of the Democratic Party's statewide nomination contests ahead of the 2004 presidential election.
By the time of the Illinois primary, Kerry was seen as having all but formally secured the nomination.
CandidateVotes%Delegates
John Kerry873,23071.72155
John Edwards 131,96610.841
Carol Moseley Braun 53,2494.370
Howard Dean 47,3433.890
Al Sharpton 36,1232.970
Dennis Kucinich28,0832.310
Joe Lieberman 24,3542.000
Wesley Clark 19,3041.590
Lyndon LaRouche3,8630.320
Total1,217,515100%156

Republican

Incumbent president George W. Bush won the Republican primary. Republican was running for reelection without a major opponents, and with no opponents on the ballot in Illinois.
Illinois assigned 60 directly-elected delegates. The Illinois primary was a so-called "Loophole" primary. This meant that the statewide presidential preference vote was a "beauty contest", from which no delegates would be assigned. Instead, the delegates were assigned by separate direct-votes on delegate candidates. These delegates were noted voted on at-large by a state vote, but rather by congressional district votes. The number of delegates each congressional district would be able to elect had been decided based upon the strength of that district's vote for the Republican nominee in the previous 2000 election. This meant that four delegates each were elected from Illinois's 6th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 18th, and 19th congressional districts, three delegates each were elected from Illinois's 12th and 17th congressional districts, and two delegates each were elected from Illinois's 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 9th congressional districts
Ten of the remaining delegates not directly elected by congressional district were selected at the Illinois Republican Party Convention, and were unpledged delegates. The other three would be unplugged ex-officio delegates, roles filled by the states National Committeeman, the National Committeewoman, and the chairman of the Illinois's Republican Party.
Illinois Republican primary, 2004---
CandidateVotesPercentageDelegates
George W. Bush583,575100%60
Totals583,575100%60

Campaign

Predictions

There were 12 news organizations who made state-by-state predictions of the election. Here are their last predictions before election day.
  1. D.C. Political Report: Solid Democrat
  2. Associated Press: Solid Kerry
  3. CNN: Kerry
  4. Cook Political Report: Solid Democrat
  5. Newsweek: Solid Kerry
  6. New York Times: Solid Kerry
  7. Rasmussen Reports: Kerry
  8. Research 2000: Solid Kerry
  9. Washington Post: Kerry
  10. Washington Times: Solid Kerry
  11. Zogby International: Kerry
  12. Washington Dispatch: Kerry

    Polling

Kerry won every single pre-election poll. Out of the 12 polls taken, Kerry won 9 of them with 52% or higher. The final 3 polls averaged Kerry leading 54% to Bush with 41%.

Fundraising

Bush raised $6,892,187. Kerry raised $7,100,400.

Advertising and visits

Neither campaign advertised or visited this state during the fall election season because it was expected not to be competitive and Kerry had a solid lead in the state.

Analysis

has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1992, all by fairly comfortable margins. The blue trend in the “Land of Lincoln” in presidential elections can be largely attributed to Cook County which contains heavily Democratic Chicago and makes up about 41.2% of the state's total population. Additionally, the historically Republican "collar counties" near Chicago have become friendlier to Democrats at the national level. Kerry also performed well in St. Clair County home of East St. Louis. Kerry also performed well in Champaign, Aurora, and Carbondale.
, this is the last election in which DeKalb County, Winnebago County, Will County, Kane County, DuPage County, and Lake County voted for a Republican presidential candidate.

Results

Results by county

By congressional district

Kerry won ten of nineteen congressional districts.
DistrictKerryBushRepresentative
83%17%Bobby Rush
84%16%Jesse Jackson Jr.
59%41%Bill Lipinski
59%41%Dan Lipinski
79%21%Luis Gutierrez
67%33%Rahm Emanuel
47%53%Henry Hyde
83%17%Danny K. Davis
44%56%Phil Crane
44%56%Melissa Bean
68%32%Jan Schakowsky
53%47%Mark Kirk
46%53%Jerry Weller
52%48%Jerry Costello
45%55%Judy Biggert
44%55%Dennis Hastert
41%59%Timothy V. Johnson
44%55%Donald Manzullo
51%48%Lane Evans
42%58%Ray LaHood
39%61%John Shimkus

Electors

Technically the voters of Illinois cast their ballots for electors: representatives to the Electoral College. Illinois is allocated 21 electors because it has 19 congressional districts and 2 senators. All candidates who appear on the ballot or qualify to receive write-in votes must submit a list of 21 electors, who pledge to vote for their candidate and his or her running mate. Whoever wins the majority of votes in the state is awarded all 21 electoral votes. Their chosen electors then vote for president and vice president. Although electors are pledged to their candidate and running mate, they are not obligated to vote for them. An elector who votes for someone other than his or her candidate is known as a faithless elector.
The electors of each state and the District of Columbia met on December 13, 2004, to cast their votes for president and vice president. The Electoral College itself never meets as one body. Instead the electors from each state and the District of Columbia met in their respective capitols.
The following were the members of the Electoral College from Illinois. All were pledged to and voted for Kerry and Edwards:
  1. Constance A. Howard
  2. Carrie Austin
  3. Shirley R. Madigan
  4. Tony Munoz
  5. James DeLeo
  6. Joan Brennan
  7. Vera Davis
  8. Linda Pasternak
  9. William Marovitz
  10. Dan Pierce
  11. Debbie Halvorson
  12. Molly McKenzie
  13. Beth Ann May
  14. Mary Lou Kearns
  15. Lynn Foster
  16. John Nelson
  17. Mary Boland
  18. Shirley McCombs
  19. Jerry Sinclair
  20. Barbara Flynn Currie
  21. John Daley