Trump lost the presidential vote in Illinois, but still performed better than his two previous runs
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Donald Trump's projected victory over Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election not only marks an improbable comeback for the former president, but marked arguably his strongest performance in any of his three presidential races, including in Illinois.
While votes are still being counted in some battleground states, President-elect Trump is not only leading the popular vote for the first time, but if he pulls off wins in Michigan, Arizona, and Nevada, would also claim a larger Electoral College victory than when he won his first term in office in 2016, despite losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.
That trend is reflected in Illinois, where Trump — who is set to become the first convicted felon to win the presidency — is having his best performance of any of his three runs for president.
Although Vice President Harris is projected to have defeated Trump in Illinois, her margin of victory in Illinois won't be nearly as large as President Joe Biden's in 2020 or Hillary Clinton's in 2016.
As of Wednesday morning, Harris was leading Trump 51.3% to 47.1% in Illinois. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump in Illinois 57.54% to 40.55%, and in 2016, Clinton topped Trump in Illinois 55.83% to 38.76%.
Harris would be the first Democrat to win Illinois by less than 10 percentage points since the last time a Republican won in Illinois in 1988. Her current support of 51.3% would be the worst performance for a Democrat in Illinois since Bill Clinton won with 48.6% of the vote in 1992.
While votes are still being counted, Trump already has won more votes in Illinois than he did in either of the two previous elections. As of Wednesday morning, Trump had 2,483,905 votes in Illinois, compared to 2,466,891 in 2020, and 2,146,015 in 2016.
Nationally, Trump's victory was propelled by voters dissatisfied with the economy, particularly the impact of inflation, according to CBS News exit poll results.
Harris underperformed with key parts of the Democratic coalition, while Trump made some inroads. He also continued to excel with some groups who have historically backed him, keeping his coalition largely intact.
Exit polling shows Trump won overwhelmingly among White voters without a college education and made inroads with Black and Latino men.
Throughout his two-year campaign, Trump hammered President Biden, and later Harris, on inflation and the economy. It's a message that resonated with voters, whose views on the economy are more negative now than they were in 2020, despite the pandemic that brought the economy to a halt during his presidency.
Nationally and across the battleground states, on the question of whether voters are better off now than they were four years ago, more voters said they are financially worse off.
