"A Republican had never won Schock's inner-city district before this election."
Let's take a quick look at that statement (and those of you with half a brain see where this going)... The district in question is the Illinois 18th. Schock is replacing Ray LaHood (R) who served from to 1995-2009. Prior to LaHood Bob Michel (R) served as the Representative from the 18th from 1957-1995. From 1949-1957 Harold Velde (R) was the Rep for the 18th. From 1947-1949 Edward H. Jensen (R) and from 1939-1947 Jessie Sumner (R) repped the 18th. You have to go back to the FDR sweep of the 1932 elections to find James A. Meeks (D) who served from 1933-1939 as the last Democrat from the 18th. So Gawker got this pretty much totally wrong. A /Democrat/ hasn't won Schock's seat since the Great Depression.
The 18th is hardly an "inner-city" district either. Let's take a look at the geography first:
Notice something? Yeah Peoria is a small part of a much larger (geographically speaking) district. Still Peoria must skew the numbers for IL-18 the way Chicago does for the state as a whole, right? Well, not so much, the population for the district as a whole was about 650,000 in 2006. Peoria's population is about 113,000. The Greater Peoria area has a population of approximately 370,000. That's a lot of suburbs for an "inner-city" district. Put simply about 85% of IL-18 lives in either the suburbs or rural areas -- hardly an inner-city district and a staunchly Republican one.
