Industrial Midwest - 2024 Election Compendium

Topic: 2024 Election Analysis

Industrial Midwest 2024 Presidential Election Review

Author’s Note: All other election reviews can be found here.

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This portion of the 2024 Election Compendium focuses on three states in the Industrial Midwest (AKA “Rust Belt”). They are assessed first to provide a deep contrast to the coming reviews of Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Outcomes

Illinois Harris +10.9%

Indiana Trump +19.0%

Ohio Trump +11.2%

My Predictions

Illinois Harris by minimum of 10.0%

Indiana Trump by minimum of 18.0%

Ohio Trump by minimum of 10.0%

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Preface

Given that I had none of these states likely to be decided within 10 points, which proved to be correct, there isn’t much difficulty involved in forecasting any of the three. Barack Obama won them all in 2008, with his win in Indiana being a huge upset, and held Ohio as a critical battleground in his 2012 reelection bid against Mitt Romney. Things have changed a lot in this region since then, primarily with how these states responded to Donald Trump as GOP standard bearer. Ohio and Indiana went nuts for Trump, while Illinois, owing to the sprawl and corruption of Chicago and the political lean of its affluent suburbs, stayed mostly put as a solid blue state for two cycles before finishing much tighter than normal this year.

These states are important in the 2024 cycle for understanding two enormously important decisive states – Pennsylvania and Michigan. While portions of Illinois correspond to portions of Iowa, which corresponds to much of Wisconsin, the primary value in this analysis is in observing the shift of the white-working class in safe Trump states Ohio and Indiana and contrasting with election results in Pennsylvania and Michigan to construct an accurate assessment of the quality of the races there.

None of these three states register by party, but if they did, they would most certainly be shifting in a Republican trajectory based on 2024 outcomes, and in all but a handful of counties.

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Analysis

ILLINOIS

· Even though not a single county in Illinois flipped, 96 of 102 counties shifted more Republican than they were in 2020. Shifts were notable in the western portion of the state and matched Iowa’s hard Republican lean, but the most notable in making up statewide margin were the Chicagoland Big 6 – Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, and Will Counties. Trump ate up 388,251 of Biden’s margin from these six counties, largely based on Harris’s hemorrhaging of votes in Cook County. Here is how these six counties have fared in each of Trump’s three races in Illinois:

It is notable that while Trump improved significantly in Chicagoland, he is practically maxed out in the remaining 96 counties, with depopulation having a hand in that:

· Referencing the above graphic, almost all of Trump’s progress in the state came from his gains in the Chicagoland area, which accounted for 63.2% of Illinois’ ballot count in 2024.

· Even local Illinois media are wringing their hands and asking what happened to the ballots in the 2024 race. They should be asking themselves why the ballot count was so inflated in the 2020 race, which proves me right about the Chicagoland counties, especially Cook. The City of Chicago had its second-lowest presidential turnout since 1944 – but it isn’t exactly a mystery me as to why this is the case:

· Illinois certified 5,633,310 ballots, down from 6,049,500 in 2020. That represents a decline of 416,190 ballots, or 6.9%, from 2020. Like New York with its major drop-off, it appears no concentrated effort was made to inflate the Harris margin in Illinois by stuffing ballots. Cook County was down almost a quarter-million ballots based on Chicago’s disinterest in the race and lack of replicated 2020 fortification, and Harris failed to add ballots to Biden’s ballot counts in any of Chicago’s collar counties. She made only slight gains in two counties that do not appear significantly manipulated in either the 2020 or 2024 results.

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INDIANA

· In Indiana, the most Republican of the Industrial Midwestern states, Trump won 88 of 92 counties. 80 counties shifted to the Republican right from 2020, and of the 12 that shifted left, the shift in 6 was less than a point. All southern Indiana had a hard Trump shift, as did all northwestern Indiana. Harris gained ballots over Biden’s 2020 count in 11 counties, with her gain in Hamilton County (+2,004) the most notable.

· The most notable left shifts in Indiana occurred around the Indianapolis suburbs, with Boone and Hendricks Counties most notable for both having 2.5% shifts to the left. Trump mostly held his ground in Hamilton County, Indianapolis’s affluent suburb to the north, which is a Republican stronghold won by every GOP nominee since 1916, but only by 6.0% in 2024 (and 6.8% in 2020, which appears to be a heavily manipulated result). Trump’s most notable progress was made in Lake County, which is part of the extended Chicago metro and contains Democrat trophy Gary, where Harris posted the lowest Democrat vote total since 2000 and won by just 5.6%, the lowest Democrat presidential margin there since 1980. Trump made up 21,294 in margin in that county alone.

· Democrat urban decline was also evident in Marion County, which contains core Indianapolis. Harris plummeted by 26,053 from 2020’s Biden ballot count there, suggesting my assessment that Marion County was stuffing ballots four years ago is correct. Trump lost nearly 10,000 of his own votes here from 2020, but the net swing was 16,205 ballots to the right, or 1.6%.

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OHIO

· Trump’s margin in Ohio (+11.2%) is the largest for any candidate since Ronald Reagan carried the state by 18.8% in 1984, and even higher than Reagan’s 1980 margin of 10.6%. The Buckeye State had aligned with every presidential winner since 1896 except for two prior to the 2020 election, when it somehow missed, which most of you reading this understand to be due to the COVID malfeasance pertaining to the race.

· In urban Ohio, Harris lost 28,626 ballots in Franklin (core Columbus and Ohio State University), 39,792 in Cuyahoga (core Cleveland – below Clinton 2016 levels), 9,091 in Lucas County (Toledo – also below 2016 Clinton levels). The Democrat bleed was so bad in Ohio that Harris lagged Clinton 2016 in 38 of 88 counties statewide. In Mahoning County, which contains Youngstown and was once a Democrat stronghold only winnable for a GOP candidate in a national landslide (see 1956 and 1972), Trump won for the second cycle in a row, with Harris holding the lowest Democrat ballot count there since 1932.

· All in all, 85 of 88 counties in Ohio became more Republican in 2024’s results. Harris gained ballots over Biden exclusively in suburban counties adjacent to Cincinnati, Dayton, and Columbus. Ohio does not appear to have been a target for any concentrated effort to manipulate the 2024 results.

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REGION

· The three-cycle contrast map of the region is above. Harris added ballots in just 20 out of 282 counties in this region (7.1%). Harris’s noteworthy gains that are likely to stick in future elections are contained to suburban areas near Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne, and they are minimal. 261 of 282 counties shifted to the Republican right for Trump (92.6%). Harris’s losses are so deep in Ohio, particularly in the east, they cost Sherrod Brown his U.S. Senate seat and suggest a devastating collapse should have occurred in Michigan and Pennsylvania, paving the way for easy Trump wins in those states (wait and see).

· Referencing the chart above, Trump shifted 651,373 votes in margin in these three states, with gains in Illinois and Ohio most notable. Indiana, if not for the gains in Lake and Marion Counties, would be largely maxed out in raw vote margin in rural areas; likewise, urban improvement holds the key for sustaining Ohio as a GOP blowout state, and shifting Illinois toward competition.

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Opportunities for Election Manipulation

Here is how these three states rank with regard to my most commonly assessed demerits.

· Voter ID – Ohio and Indiana require photo ID, but Illinois requires no ID at all.

· Same Day Registration – Ohio and Indiana do not permit same day voter registration, but Illinois does.

· Ballot Harvesting – Ohio and Indiana closely regulate who can return mail-in ballots, but Illinois does not, which means ballot harvesting opportunities are plentiful there.

· Ranked Choice Voting – Not present in any of these states.

· Automatic Voter Registration – Illinois operates Automatic Voter Registration (AVR), which floods voter rolls with ineligible entries and is a hallmark of blue states.

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The Pathway Ahead

Illinois, once a Republican stronghold that backed 8 of 10 GOP presidential nominees between 1952 and 1988, will only become playable for GOP nominees with major improvements in Chicago and Cook County’s collar counties, which will require organic gains with whites and minorities, plus a significant curbing of Illinois’ ability to rig election outcomes, which likely occurred in 1960, and was well known to Bob Dole, who referenced this topic in his farewell letter to America:

I also confess that I’m a bit curious to learn and find if I am correct in thinking that heaven will look a lot like Kansas and to see, like others who have gone before me, if I will still be able to vote in Chicago.

Indiana is a safe Republican state moving forward, even if the party backtracks on its populist agenda (which would be a mistake). Republicans should put major effort into unwinding the Democrat web over Indianapolis and Marion County, which will offset any gradual gains made in the city’s suburban counties. The Hoosier State has strong election laws relative to the rest of the country, so it is incumbent upon election integrity activists there to make sure no bad ideas wind up on ballot measures or in legislative chambers.

Patriots in Ohio have the same mission, given that their state has taken up a heavy rightward trajectory, so much so that the state is now capable of electing all Republicans statewide so long as the Democrat Party remains entrenched in its insane agenda and socially destructive behavior. Republicans should make it their agenda to revitalize dilapidated industrial areas like Cleveland and Toledo, which will echo in adjacent states and help offset Democrat damage in metros like Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Detroit.

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Final Grades and Closing Commentary

The Top 5 Election Integrity Targets in the Industrial Midwest are (in no order):

· Cook County, IL

· DuPage County, IL

· Cuyahoga County, OH

· Franklin County, OH

· Lake County, IN

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Illinois receives a Grade of 2 – Marginal Concern – based on its awful election laws and allowance of most well-known fraud vectors, even though there appears to be no coordinated plan to manipulate the 2024 election results based upon the data.

Demerits: Voter ID, Same Day Registration, Ballot Harvesting, Automatic Voter Registration

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Indiana receives a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern – based on 2024 shifts and the presence of strong election laws.

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Ohio receives a Grade of 2 – Marginal Concern – based entirely on the fact that it exceeds the maximum count of electoral votes for received a Grade of 1 – Lowest Concern. Otherwise, it has strong election laws and shows no indication of coordinated manipulation of the 2024 results.

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Seth Keshel, MBA, is a former Army Captain of Military Intelligence and Afghanistan veteran. His analytical method of election forecasting and analytics is known worldwide, and he has been commended by President Donald J. Trump for his work in the field.