(More phenomenal work from jeffmd – promoted by James L.)
If I lived a few miles south, I’d live smack in the middle of Illinois’ 5th Congressional District.
Given that 12 candidates were running in the election on Tuesday – and that Quigley won with no more than 25% of the vote, I wanted to take a detailed look at the results by precinct.
A few Saturdays ago, I was running errands in Ravenswood. As I rode the Brown Line south towards the Loop, I noticed a distinct pattern in yard (or perhaps more accurately, window) signs – each neighborhood had the majority of signs supporting one candidate. North-South, they roughly went O’Connor, then Fritchey, then Quigley, then Feigenholtz.
So using the results available from the Chicago BoE, I tried to see if these yard signs were actually reflective. I also look at if each candidate did better in the district (whether State House, County Commissioner, or City Ward) that they represented.
I only got around to analyzing results within the city of Chicago though. Illinois (go figure) establishes separate election authorities for the City of Chicago and Suburban Cook County, and the Cook Suburbs didn’t give me the requisite shapefiles to play with.
So, here’s the goody that I think we’re all waiting for: the winner by precinct (within the City of Chicago).
More maps and results below the flip.
Of course, this map doesn’t show what the magnitude of the win in each precinct was, so this is a map that does. The legend might be unclear, so a color in the first column of the box indicates a precinct won by a candidate with 0-20%. In the second column, 20-30%, etc.
Grey indicates a tie in both maps. Just some quick qualitative comments: Wheelan’s 7 precincts all came in Lincoln Park – the most affluent neighborhood of Chicago. Feigenholtz’s strength was in Lakeview, especially in Chicago’s LGBT center along North Halsted. Fritchey did well in Rahm’s homebase of North Center, as well as some outlying precincts here and there. Forys did best in Portage Park – a predominantly Polish neighborhood, and O’Connor did well in his base in Lincoln Square. Quigley’s strongholds are harder to point out – some precincts in Albany Park and Irving Park in the center of the district, but also the sliver of Edgewater that isn’t in the 9th CD, and much of Wrigleyville and Lakeview beyond Belmont.
Just to recap, here were the results from the city of Chicago:
| Wheelan | Feigenholtz | Fritchey | Forys | Geoghegan | Quigley | O’Connor | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5th CD | 3,501 | 8,261 | 9,147 | 5,495 | 3,228 | 11,551 | 6,139 | 3,452 |
| 6.90% | 16.27% | 18.02% | 10.82% | 6.36% | 22.75% | 12.09% | 6.80% |
Overall, there are 486 precincts in the Chicago part of the district. Quigley won 153, Fritchey 98, Forys 90, Feigenholtz and O’Connor 57 each, and Wheelan 7. Additionally, 23 precincts were tied.
So sure, the maps are pretty and all, but what do they actually indicate? Well, let’s break it down by the various districts involved.
For those of you keeping score:
-Fritchey represents the 11th Legislative District; Feigenholtz represents the 12th.
-Quigley represents the 10th Cook County Commissioner District.
-O’Connor represents the 40th Ward of the City of Chicago.
So by LD first:
| Wheelan | Feigenholtz | Fritchey | Forys | Geoghegan | Quigley | O’Connor | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11th LD | 1,244 | 1,674 | 2,238 | 94 | 865 | 2,812 | 591 | 438 |
| 12.49% | 16.81% | 22.48% | 0.94% | 8.69% | 28.24% | 5.94% | 4.40% | |
| 12th LD | 652 | 2,587 | 440 | 74 | 413 | 1,916 | 184 | 238 |
| 10.02% | 39.78% | 6.77% | 1.14% | 6.35% | 29.46% | 2.83% | 3.66% | |
| Other LD | 1,605 | 4,000 | 6,469 | 5,327 | 1,950 | 6,823 | 5,364 | 2,776 |
| 4.68% | 11.66% | 18.85% | 15.52% | 5.68% | 19.88% | 15.63% | 8.09% |
As you can see, Feigenholtz clearly had the ‘in-district’ effect – earning 40% within the 12th LD compared to 13% outside. She dominated here, winning 42 of 63 precincts, including half with 45%+.
The effect for Fritchey is less clear, he earned 22% within the 11th LD compared to 17% outside. He carried 26 of 91 precincts, compared to Quigley’s 48.
For Cook County Commission Districts:
| Wheelan | Feigenholtz | Fritchey | Forys | Geoghegan | Quigley | O’Connor | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10th Commis. | 1,296 | 3,577 | 1,089 | 235 | 795 | 3,477 | 1,876 | 508 |
| 10.08% | 27.83% | 8.47% | 1.83% | 6.19% | 27.05% | 14.60% | 3.95% | |
| Other Commis. | 2,205 | 4,684 | 8,058 | 5,260 | 2,433 | 8,074 | 4,263 | 2,944 |
| 5.81% | 12.35% | 21.25% | 13.87% | 6.42% | 21.29% | 11.24% | 7.76% |
The effect for Quigley is of questionable magnitude as well. He got 27% inside the 10th Commis, compared to 21% outside. Precinct-wise, his numbers weren’t amazing either, winning 37 of 121 – compared to Fritchey’s 48. For those of you with fast math skills, that means Quigley won 30.5% of precincts within his district and 32% of those not. Go figure.
Incidentally, yes, the 10th Commissioner district is contiguous – it simply runs outside the 5th, so I did not display it here.
Lastly, by city ward:
| Wheelan | Feigenholtz | Fritchey | Forys | Geoghegan | Quigley | O’Connor | Other | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40th Ward | 97 | 323 | 197 | 16 | 200 | 445 | 1,562 | 91 |
| 3.31% | 11.02% | 6.72% | 0.55% | 6.82% | 15.18% | 53.29% | 3.10% | |
| Other Wards | 3,404 | 7,938 | 8,950 | 5,479 | 3,028 | 11,106 | 4,577 | 3,361 |
| 7.11% | 16.59% | 18.71% | 11.45% | 6.33% | 23.21% | 9.57% | 7.03% |
The ‘home district’ effect is clearest for 40th Ward Alderman O’Connor. He earned a stunning 53% within his ward, compared to 10% throughout the rest of the city. He swept 22 of 27 precincts as well. 12 of these 22 yielded 60%+ for him. Remnants of the machine? I’ll leave you to decide.
So was there a home district effect? Maybe. I think Quigley was able to win simply because he wasn’t limited to it. He was able to perform consistently both within and outside the 10th Commissioner district – enough to squeeze out a win.
the Repub in this race is racist Freeper and the head of the Illinois Minutemen whose handle is chicagolady, and has written a whole bunch of outrageous and racist statements
exceptional work and marvelously illustrative. I appreciate the work you put into this.
and the obvious conclusion to draw is Quigley’s landing of the papers’ endorsement is the reason he drew a decent level of support across district lines while the rest stayed concentrated and limited to their base areas, with the exception of Feigenholtz with her support from national organizations and higher paid media.
Newspapers may be bleeding money and teetering on their last legs, but they still have Old School clout in a Mongolian cluster of a multi-candidate race. And, with Wheelan and Geohegan trying to draw from the same well, neither was able to break out New Jack style.
With the collapsed time frame of this primary race, there are not many lessons we can draw from this which are widely (let alone universally) applicable, but fascinating nonetheless.
If there is a lesson, it is relying heavily on one’s geographic base to provide a margin is not a wise strategy in a crowded field. Against one or two others, sure. But, when there are beaucoups of candidates, your base area floor and ceilings are going to be lowered. Got to come up with some votes outside your base.
Do you live in Evanston, perchance? I used to live there (I went to Northwestern).
thanks for the maps!
this leads me to a question i’ve had for awhile…where do all you get your maps to color code them? do you use a specific program?
i’ve wanted to so some county level maps for several states but am unsure where to get county level maps that i can color code.