The Republican Party’s advantage in the collar counties has been pivotal to its dominance of Illinois gubernatorial elections. But in 1972, Democrat Daniel Walker carried 42 percent of the vote in the collars on his way to winning. And mild Democratic success there led to close elections in 1982, 1990 and 1998, when Glenn Poshard collected 213,650 collar-county votes, the most since Walker’s 257,857.
Notes: The Democrats did not run a candidate in the 1986 general election. Adlai Stevenson won the Democratic Primary that year but ran as a member of the Solidarity Party in the general election. –˜Cook’ denotes Cook County. –˜Collar’ includes DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties. –˜Downstate’ refers to all remaining Illinois counties.
Source: Illinois State Board of Elections; analyzed by The Chicago Reporter.