Earlier this month, 11 elected officials were sworn into DuPage County offices.
Of those, nine were Democrats.
In the wake of November’s general election, DuPage County — once a Republican stronghold — seems to have definitively shifted left, experts and observers say.
“I think we have strong evidence suggesting that we can now say DuPage is reliably blue,” said Melissa Mouritsen, a political science professor at College of DuPage.
From federal races to county contests, the 2024 election saw the Democratic Party come out strong across DuPage. Voters favored the Democratic candidates in four of five congressional races that reached into the county. Democrats also captured a larger share of the county’s vote in three of four state senator races and 12 of 16 state representative races.
County-wide, three-term DuPage County Coroner Richard Jorgensen was unseated by Democratic challenger Judith Lukas. Democratic incumbents prevailed in their reelection bids for circuit clerk and auditor while the Democratic candidate clinched a win in the race for recorder.
On the DuPage County Board, a Democratic challenger unseated her Republican predecessor, while other Democratic incumbents held onto their seats, leaving the body with 12 Democrats, six Republicans and a Democratic chair.
Eighteen years ago, not one Democrat sat on the board.
Change in course
For more than a century, DuPage County was undeniably Republican. But over the past two decades — particularly the past six years — Democrats have incrementally loosened the GOP’s grip on the county.
In 2006, the county had an entirely Republican 18-seat board. Over the next 10 years, Democrats grew to have a small presence on the body. But then the tide really started to change.
In 2018 alone, the body added six Democrats to the mix. That same year, Jean Kaczmarek was elected clerk, making her the first Democrat to snag a county-wide office in DuPage since 1934.
By 2020, Democrats picked up four more seats on the board, flipping the majority in their favor. Two years later, voters elected the board’s first Democratic chair in at least three-quarters of a century.
It all pointed to a change in course. Still, even when Democrats took control of the board four years ago — something that hadn’t happened since the 1930s — questions loomed: was DuPage County really blue? Was it purple? Will it last?
November’s election, though, dealt answers, observers say. That’s even despite Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket underperforming President Joe Biden by nearly three points.
“I think it’s enduring change,” Mouritsen said. And it comes down to there being a greater shift in what the electorate is thinking, meaning residents “by and large more identify as Democrats,” she said.
Mouritsen, in part, attributes the change to secular shift, including demographics and that “we’re seeing more people move to DuPage from Cook County, who bring their politics.”
Another factor is mapmaking, Mouritsen said. Favorable political districts for Illinois Democrats starting in 2010 gave way to Democratic gerrymandering in DuPage, she said. A third component has been just work of the party itself.
Mouritsen called the trio of factors “three legs of a table,” all contributing to Democrats’ ascendancy in Dupage. Then, six years ago, the change — already in the making — hastened with something Mouritsen dubbed the “Trump effect.”
Repudiation
In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump received 39% of the county’s vote, nearly nine points less than Mitt Romney four years prior. Locally, there appeared to be an aversion to Trump, Mouritsen said.
“(I would say) there was a strong contingent of Republicans in DuPage County who felt that way,” she said, adding that in turn helped to spur on the blue shift already taking root in the county.
Former DuPage County Board Democrat Elizabeth “Liz” Chaplin says that she has likewise found that, “(With) what we’re hearing at the national level … a lot of people just don’t like this rhetoric (and) I think that really helped us resonate with the voters.”
Chaplin was first elected to the board in 2012. She retained her seat for 12 more years before leaving to successfully run for county recorder this year.
“I mean, from 12 years to where we are today, I never thought it would have turned this quickly,” she said. To her, Trump’s first term is the “prevailing factor” in propelling that flip, she said.
Jennifer Zordani, who was the acting chair of the Democratic Party of DuPage County until mid-November, likewise thinks repudiation has played an important part in change, she says, though less so in direct response to Trump and more against extremist ideology in general.
“I don’t know if it’s as much the repudiation of Trump … (as it is) a repudiation of extremists on issues,” she said.
Where Zordani and Chaplin do align is their belief in where the past few years have landed DuPage today.
“I believe it is solidly blue,” Zordani said.
Chaplin echoed, “I do see (the county) as truly blue.”
Across the aisle, though, observations diverge.
‘Green wave’
James Zay, a DuPage County Board member since 1999 and chairman of DuPage County Republicans, says he wouldn’t call recent change a blue wave but a “green wave.”
“Democrats are outspending us probably 10 to one at least in all of these House and Senate races and on media on Chicago markets. … And you can’t tell me it doesn’t have an effect down ballot,” Zay said.
Democrats had a hefty financial advantage in state legislative races, with the House Democrats’ campaign organization and the state party funneling millions of dollars to candidates facing potentially tough Republican competition.
As far as other potential down-ballot effects, Zay dismissed the notion that Trump is a deterrent for local Republicans. There were more requests for Trump signs ahead of November’s election than he’s seen before, Zay said.
Speaking to the GOP’s broader trajectory both in the years leading up to November and going forward, Zay did recognize there is work ahead for the party. Namely, building Republicans’ stronghold back from the ground up.
DuPage Republicans in recent years have lost a once-strong pipeline for up-and-coming candidates, Zay said. Of late, the party hasn’t “done a good job of bringing people up from park district boards and municipal boards” for higher office, he said. It needs to build a farm system again, he noted.
In Zay’s estimation, the county these days is more purple than firmly blue.
“I would definitely say it’s a 60-40 (Democrats to Republicans) county right now,” he said. But that split, as the past few years have shown, is subject to change, he added. “It could turn at any time. I mean, who knows, you know?”
A blue future?
The durability of Democrats’ momentum in DuPage is hard to pinpoint, according to Stephen Maynard Caliendo, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at North Central College.
Caliendo, who is also a professor of political science, expects the shift to persist for some time, though that doesn’t mean it will never swing back, he said. There are a few factors, again, playing to Democrats’ favor. One is incumbent advantage, Caliendo says. Another is the party’s power statewide, he said, especially when it comes to redistricting.
“With a state that is always in control by Democrats, it’s very unlikely … that they’re going to” realign districts in a way that’s going to put them — candidates in DuPage included — at a disadvantage, he said.
What could make a difference is the country’s larger political environment, Caliendo said.
“The reason why I might be wrong,” he said, “is because we may be seeing a fundamental realignment of the parties … and what I mean by that is I don’t know if the Republican Party can survive Trump in the form that it had taken since 1980.”
If that’s the case, Caliendo continued, “everything I said about redistricting and whatever is not going to make any difference because people who used to vote Democrat might vote Republican” and vice versa.
For now, what DuPage Democrats can — and should do — is avoid complacency, Chaplin and Zordani advise.
“We’re still growing. … We can’t rest on our laurels,” Chaplin said.
“I think we have to continue to work to let people know who we are,” Zordani added, “(and) what we’re doing. … We are solidly blue, but it would never ever be something I would take for granted.”
Chicago Tribune reporters Jeremy Gorner, Olivia Olander, Adriana Pérez and Karina Atkins contributed.
