Could Obama lose Illinois?

**Posted by Phineas

According to Alexis Levin of The Daily Caller, Obama may have to start spending real money to guard his home base (1):

President Barack Obama could lose his home state of Illinois in November, a new poll shows.

A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist Michael McKeon found Obama leading Republican Mitt Romney by 49 percent to 37 percent in Cook County, the home of Chicago. That puts him ahead by a far thinner margin than expected in a county he should be winning handsomely.

Cook is the most Democratic leaning county in the state. It is also the most populous.

Those numbers do not bode well for the president.

No, they don’t. But… come on. This is Illinois, where everyone gets to vote. Twice. Even the dead. Surely the Combine will scare up/buy up enough voters to make sure their guy doesn’t suffer a humiliating loss in his home state. I’ll have a hot date with Kate Upton before that happens.

But then again…

As Levin points out, Democratic dominance of Illinois is largely dependent on the corrupt politics of Chicago itself and Cook County, and to a lesser extent in the ring of counties surrounding the two. “Downstate” Illinois is much friendlier to Republicans; in the last governor’s race, upstart Republican Bill Brady only narrowly lost to Democrat Pat Quinn by winning most of downstate. Obama’s number have to be worrisome to him and his team: Romney leads The One 45-38 in the area around Chicago, and among independents in Cook County Romney leads 43-31. Obama has to win big in these areas to overcome his unpopularity downstate, but his only lead is in core Chicago (which is huge, 60-29).

I still don’t expect Obama to lose Illinois, but the needle has moved from “not a snowball’s chance” to an intrigued “Hmmm…”. And anything that makes him spend money here means less he has for the traditional battleground states.

Maybe I should start planning where to take Kate for dinner. Just in case.

Footnote:
(1) No, not Nairobi, you silly people!

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

Kurt says:

August 20, 2012 at 2:10 pm

It’s certainly an interesting thought. But I’m sure that the “voters” who reside in Mt. Olive Cemetery won’t permit it to happen.

Drew the Infidel says:

August 20, 2012 at 3:19 pm

To say Chicago politics is crooked is like saying the Titanic had a bad voyage. Three of the past four governors are in prison. A few months ago Steven Chapman of the Tribune penned a column in which he told Obhammud it was not imperative he run for re-election and probably would not be missed anyway. Does Kate have a friend for me?

Ryan says:

August 20, 2012 at 6:53 pm

That Cook County vote is pretty tough to overcome in Illinois. It usually gives any Democract enough of a bump to overcome whatever happens elsewhere in the state.

The counties surrounding Chicago and adjacent to Cook County have pretty much gone Republican always – except in 2008. I’m thinking there’s a strong chance they’ll all go Romney, but Cook County will be too much to overcome.

August 20, 2012 at 7:10 pm

Forgot to add this – if Romney did somehow manage to get 37% of the vote in Cook County, that would represent about a 600,000 vote swing. But keep in mind that Obama won the 2008 election in Illinois by around 1.4 million votes. Making up the remaining 800,000 votes would be really, really tough. He’s gotta have a tremendously strong performance in DuPage, Kane, Will, Lake, and McHenry counties.

Carlos says:

August 21, 2012 at 9:42 am

If the price of gasoline keeps going up as it has, the only ones who won’t care will be the pols and bureaucrats who spend our money buying it for their luxury government wheels – everyone else will be blaming the president.

Only as it should be.

And, BTW, Mr. President, high gas prices are not in and of themselves a national emergency, and your have no legal right to touch the reserves before the elections to bring prices down.