While Vice President Kamala Harris continued the Democrats’ streak of winning Illinois, former President Donald Trump’s performance is one of the GOP’s best in decades.
Harris was projected as the winner in Illinois after polls closed on Tuesday, but the performance by Trump represents his best in the state in his three elections, and also marks a significant tightening of the presidential race in the state.
As of 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, Harris held a lead of 223,614 votes over Trump, representing a lead of 4.2 points, according to NBC News.
If those results were to hold, it would mark the closest presidential election in Illinois since 1988, when George H.W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis en route to winning his White House bid.
That election also marked the last time that a Republican carried Illinois, with the GOP winning the state in six consecutive elections following Lyndon B. Johnson’s win in 1964.
Since then, Democrats have won the state by double-digits, with former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden each winning the state by more than a million votes in election victories.
Here’s a breakdown of the last nine elections prior to this year:
Local
2020: Biden +17% (1,025,024 votes)
2016: Clinton +16.88% (944,714 votes)
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2012: Obama +16.87% (884,296 votes)
2008: Obama +25.14% (1,388,169 votes)
2004: Kerry +10.34% (545,604 votes)
2000: Gore +14.02% (569,605 votes)
1996: Clinton +17.51% (754,723 votes)
1992: Clinton +14.24% (719,254 votes)
1988: Bush +2.09% (94,999 votes)
During this time, Illinois has dropped from 24 Electoral College votes in 1998 to 19 in this year’s election cycle.
In his first two elections in Illinois, Trump has increased his share of the vote total on each occasion, winning 38.36% of the vote in 2016 and 40.55% of the vote in 2020.
