GOP makes gains in niche areas, including jail
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While Vice President Harris won Chicago overall in Tuesday's election, President-elect Trump won 101 (of 1,291) precincts that are home to high populations of city workers, Chinese Americans, Orthodox Jewish Americans and incarcerated people.
Why it matters: The results could signal a shift in Chicago's traditionally deep-blue electorate.
Driving the news: Early returns show Harris garnering 77% of the city vote, compared to Joe Biden's 83% in 2020.
- Trump, meanwhile, captured 22% of the Chicago vote, compared to 16% in 2020.
What they're saying: "One thing we have established is that we have a new Republican Party here in Cook County," former Ald. Bob Fioretti said Tuesday night about the growth of local GOP votes even after losing his bid for Cook County state's attorney.
Between the lines: As in 2016 and 2020, Trump did well in city worker-heavy areas including far west West Lawn, Southwest in Mount Greenwood and Northwest in Norwood Park and Edison Park, home to the 41st ward, the city's only Trump-majority ward this year.
- He also dominated areas of West Rogers Park, especially precincts with high Orthodox Jewish populations in a year driven by political debates over the Israel-Hamas war.
- Several precincts in Chinatown, Canaryville, Bridgeport and McKinley Park with high proportions of Chinese American and white ethnic residents also came out strongly for Trump.
"In the Chinese immigrant population, there's a strong reliance on social media platforms like WeChat that make it easy for misinformation to spread and for the Trump camp to target ads that focus on fearmongering," Democratic state Rep. Theresa Mah, whose district includes these areas, tells Axios.
The intrigue: While most Trump-leaning precincts this year had a history of conservative voting, the 19th precinct of the 24th ward, which included 1,479 votes from inmates at the Cook County Jail, turned red this year.
- It was the first time Americans had the chance to vote for a convicted felon in the presidential race, something Trump predicted would help him among Black voters.