So was that a red wave or a blue wave that just crashed down on us?
If anything, Americans voted this week to make the federal government even more messed up than it already was by giving President Trump a brand new foil -- a Democrat-controlled House, to which he is certain to respond with the usual dignity and class.
There were no red waves or blue waves on Tuesday. If anything, areas that voted blue two years ago got even bluer, and the red spots grew even redder.
Perhaps that was partly due to increased turnout, which is always great if it tops 50 percent during a midterm election. Jackson County saw turnout of 50.77 percent this cycle. That's up from about 41 percent from the last midterm and gubernatorial election in 2014.
Or maybe it's because divided attitudes are hardening and growing even more divided. Maybe both.
Either way, here are a few more hot takes from Tuesday's vote. All results, of course, are unofficial until canvassed by election authorities.
The Trump effect?
In the end, did President Trump's visit to Murphysboro help pull votes toward Congressman Mike Bost, who has served in the House since 2014?
The answer is, probably. Bost seemed to be in a fairly even fight against Democrat Brendan Kelly just a few short weeks ago, but the Murphysboro Republican ended up with 51.8 percent of the vote against Kelly and Green Party candidate Randy Auxier on Tuesday, which is a pretty clean win. It's definitely enough to keep one more Republican seat from falling into the Democrats' newly won majority.
Of course, Bost now finds himself in a legislative minority, but that should be pretty familiar terrain for a Republican who served decades as a Republican in the Illinois House.
One lingering question about Trump's visit: Why, exactly, did Bost need the president to help whip up support in the congressman's own hometown?
Blues in So. Ill.
Only three counties in the southern half of the state -- Jackson, St. Clair and Alexander -- voted to send J.B. Pritzker to the governor's mansion. This is no surprise, considering the past several state election maps have featured those same patches of blue. Notably, all three southern Illinois counties gave Pritzker a clear majority of votes, although Jackson did so at a slightly lower rate than those other two.
Bryant wins; Griffin loses even more
Running for the 115th District Statehouse seat, Republican incumbent Terri Bryant did even better this year against challenger Marsha Griffin than she did against the exact same opponent in 2016, but there's more to the numbers.
Bryant, who collected a still-uncanvassed 24,343 votes Tuesday night, actually earned hundreds more two years ago. Griffin, however, got over 2,000 fewer votes this year than she did in 2016. So Bryant held steady, while Griffin fell further behind.
Not easy being green
SIU philosophy professor Randy Auxier made a Green Party go at Mike Bost's congressional seat, but the results fell a little short.
Across the 12th District, Auxier polled only 3 percent against Bost and Democrat Brendan Kelly. In his home base of Jackson County, Auxier actually walked away with even less, just 2.68 percent. That's only 534 votes from Carbondale, Murphysboro and all of Jackson County out of nearly 20,000 cast in the race.
For comparison, Paula Bradshaw of Carbondale polled 6 percent for the Green Party in the 12th District in 2016.
County Dems shine
Local Democrats did well in county races. Frank Byrd won an easy race for county clerk over opponent Jay Wittenborn, while Treasurer Sharon Harris-Johnson handily fended off Republican Steve Voorhees.
Sheriff Bob Burns and Assessor Maureen Berkowitz, both Democrats, cruised to reelection unopposed. And in county board races, Democrats C.J. Calandro, Scott Comparato and Cheryl Endres all won in contested races against actual opponents.
Two notable outliers: In county board district 1, Republican incumbent Laurie Vail Nehring scored a huge victory over Billy Korando. Republican incumbent Andrew Erbes did the same against Democrat Charles Brown in district 2.
Yes We Kang?
The Carbondale City Council seat held by Navreet Kang isn't on the ballot until next spring, but Kang himself appeared this week as the Republican candidate for county board district 6.
He lost big time to Democrat Scott Comparato, who got nearly eight out of every 10 votes cast in the race.
That's the biggest gulf among all of the seven county board races that were on Tuesday's ballot.
What's up with this?
Terri Bryant is generally accepted as Carbondale's current representative to the statehouse, but the gerrymandered truth is that the southeast quadrant of the city, more or less, belongs in an entirely different House district that meanders and crawls across southern Illinois.
On Tuesday, the 11 Jackson County precincts in the 118th District -- more than 3,000 voters this week -- cast 70 percent of their votes for the Democratic incumbent, Natalie Phelps Finnie of Elizabethtown.
Unfortunately for them, and her, Republican challenger Patrick Windhorst had a field day this week and turned the perennially blue district red.
Those results for Phelps Finnie also bring to an end, at least for now, the Phelps dynasty that has held that particular seat for years.
The same basic situation exists among Carbondale, Jackson County and the 59th Senate District. But while Democratic challenger Steve Webb got more than two-thirds of the votes cast in the race in Jackson County, Republican incumbent Dale Fowler of Harrisburg was the clear winner district-wide.
Carbondale, as a united whole, would not have necessarily tilted either race, but it's possible that the city's political voice is diluted at the state level as a result of how the current maps are drawn.
At the very least, voters in these precincts are not being fairly represented in Springfield.
Change my mind!
