SPRINGFIELD – Illinois voters by hundreds of thousands chose Democrats for President and Senator but joined Republicans to wreck Gov. JB Pritzker’s plan for heavy taxation of high incomes.
Official results show 2,683,490 citizens voted for Pritzker’s tax, 3,471,915 voted for Joe Biden, and 3,278,930 voted for Dick Durbin.
Five suburban Chicago counties that delivered 877,489 votes for Biden delivered 632,801 for Pritzker’s tax, a drop of 28 percent.
Beyond the Chicago area, Biden and Durbin carried Champaign, DeKalb, Jackson, McLean, Peoria, Rock Island, St. Clair, and Winnebago counties.
All of them rejected Pritzker’s tax except Champaign County, where 48.5 percent voted for it and 47.7 voted against it.
St. Clair County cast 68,325 votes for Biden, 66,801 for Durbin, and 54,071 for Pritzker’s tax.
That’s 53 percent for Biden, 52 for Durbin, and 42 for Pritzker’s tax.
Madison County, which favored President Trump and Senate challenger Mark Curran, cast 57,836 votes for Biden, 59,178 for Durbin, and 44,041 for Pritzker’s tax.
That’s 42 percent for Biden, 43 for Durbin, and 32 for Pritzker’s tax.
In a block of 26 counties south of Springfield, 23 percent voted for Biden and 19 percent voted for Pritzker’s tax.
Pritzker scored 12 percent in Edwards and Wayne counties, 14 percent in Jasper County, and 15 percent in Washington and Clay counties.
In 39 counties from Springfield to the north and northwest, 44 percent voted for Biden and 34 percent voted for Pritzker’s tax.
Peoria County voters delivered 42 percent for the tax but their neighbors in Tazewell County offset that with 28 percent.
In 17 counties west of Springfield, Biden scored 28 percent and Pritzker scored 23.
In 12 counties at the southern tip of the state, Biden scored 31 percent and Pritzker scored 27.
Downstate voters who smashed Pritzker’s tax treated Democrats Judy Cates and Thomas Kilbride as harshly in their races for Supreme Court.
David Overstreet defeated Cates in the Fifth District by 388,129 to 232,722, or 63 percent to 37.
Cates didn’t carry any county except St. Clair, where she lives.
St. Clair gave her 68,643 votes and Overstreet 56,560, or 55 percent to 45.
Madison County wiped out that margin with 73,623 votes for Overstreet and 60,193 for Cates, or 55 percent to 45.
The other 35 counties in the district cast 257,946 votes for Overstreet and 103,886 for Cates, or 71 percent to 29.
Overstreet scored 85 percent in Wayne and Edwards, 82 in Clay, 80 in Fayette, and 79 in Effingham, Jefferson, Washington, and Jasper.
Justice Kilbride, who cleared the 60 percent hurdle for retention in 20 of 21 Third District counties in 2010, cleared it in three counties this time.
His approval fell from 68 percent ten years ago to 56.5 percent, making him the first Supreme Court Justice to lose a retention vote.
He scored 68 percent at home, in Rock Island County, 62 percent in Henderson County down the Mississippi, and 61 percent in Whiteside County up the river.
He scored 57 percent in five other nearby counties, keeping him above 60 percent for the region.
He needed a boost in Will County, where about 40 percent of the district’s voters live, but they delivered 58 percent.
Nothing could have rescued Kilbride except success in the center of his district, but the center collapsed.
A block of nine counties accounting for about a third of the district’s voters barely gave him a simple majority.
Peoria and Tazewell counties together delivered 72,839 votes for him and 71,082 against him.
La Salle County delivered 25,573 for him and 24,341 against him.
Marshall and Stark counties jointly delivered 39 percent, with 3,304 votes for him and 5,209 against him.