"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.
2 comments:
They were actually referring to his state assembly district, which went nearly 60% for Kerry in the 04 election and is a 25% minority district. No Republican has ever won that assembly district: Schock raised over $1 million and knocked on every door in the district. He won by less than 200 votes.
The article doesn't read that way ("this election" isn't the 2006 election) but that makes a lot more sense.
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