Election Tuesday came and went without the blue tidal wave that some pollsters predicted, the mile-long lines that voters were braced for or the looting and civil unrest that law-enforcement officials feared.
It also ended without a victory, or concession, speech from President Donald Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden or many of the local and state candidates who were part of an election that broke one turnout record after another, with more to come.
What we know as Election Day transitions into Election Week:
- Illinois went for Biden — a call national media outlets made within seconds of the polls closing statewide — as had 11 other states as of midnight.
- Eighteen states — including Ohio and much of the Southeast — were called for Trump, hoping to avoid becoming the first one-term president since George H.W. Bush in 1992.
- In the night’s only statewide race, Democrat Dick Durbin won a fifth term in the U.S. Senate, emerging from a field of five that included Mark Curran, the Republican former Lake County sheriff.
- Incumbent U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, beat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan for the second time in three years in the 13th Congressional District race. The Associated Press surprised some by calling the race for Davis with more than 200 precincts yet to report, but while Champaign, McLean and Sangamon counties — home to Champaign-Urbana, Bloomington-Normal and Springfield, respectively — went heavily to Londrigan, the rest of the district went for Davis. Londrigan conceded the race about 2 a.m.
- By the time all the votes are counted — and it could be another two weeks, County Clerk Aaron Ammons warned — Champaign County will have set a new record for voter turnout, surpassing the 92,842 total in 2016.
More than 50,000 of them were cast before Tuesday even arrived.
“I don’t know if we’re going to come up with the 100,000 I predicted, but we’ll be close,” said Ammons, who noted that the 2016 election wasn’t held in the midst of a global pandemic.
What we didn’t know as the clock struck midnight: Much else.
Among the unanswered questions:
- How many of the 4,000 to 5,000 vote-by-mail ballots that were still outstanding in Champaign County on Tuesday night would be returned in the next two weeks — and what impact they might have on a slew of races.
“As they trickle in,” Ammons said, “they could swing any close race.”
- How many hours, or days, it will be before a winner is declared in several of the presidential swing states. Trump led in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin; Biden in Arizona and Minnesota.
But they were all too close to call.
The wait for results — and not the officially certified ones that never come on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November — could last “several days,” warned University of Illinois political-science Professor Brian Gaines, who’s analyzed this unique presidential campaign for The News-Gazette from the start.
“I’m hopeful that we’ve talked about this enough in advance that people will realize a delay in the official results and a relatively slow calling of a number of close races isn’t really anything to get worked up about,” he said. “It shouldn’t be fodder for conspiracy theories, or complaints that something untoward is happening, or the results are being corrupted.
“It’s just the consequence of a large number of mail-in ballots and the fact that a lot of states — and Illinois is one of them — have allowed ballots to turn up pretty late, as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day, inside a two-week window.”
It was a strange Tuesday for all involved, including those whose names were on the ballot.
At 9:15 p.m., Piatt County judge candidate Suzanne Wells was still waiting for any results in a county that was slow to report.
In more ways than one, Wells said, this election had a different feel than any other in her 41 years of voting.
“The results of this election, people more than anything feel it will change their day-to-day lives,” she said. “I’m not sure people really felt that in any other election. It feels like in this election, local and national, that people do have the impression that this is going to change their day-to-day life.”
In the end, Wells wound up losing to State’s Attorney Dana Rhoades, 5,815 votes to 3,647.
After a long day that included five hours on the University of Illinois campus, incumbent Champaign County Circuit Clerk Katie Blakeman planned to stay up as long as it took to get a feel for how her race would turn out.
Blakeman’s time on campus Tuesday was the most fun she’s had the whole campaign — in large part because she got to interact with voters, a challenge in the age of the coronavirus.
“The most challenging part of campaigning during a pandemic has been the lack of direct voter interaction,” Blakeman said late Tuesday. “In 2012, I knocked on 8,000 doors, held several town hall meetings and I had a good sense of how voters were responding to me.
“This time has been much harder, but I have still enjoyed every chance I have had to talk to the people of Champaign County.”
Just before 11 p.m., Blakeman’s Democrat opponent, Susan McGrath, said she planned to follow the results online until midnight — “if I can stay awake that late.”
By the time Champaign County had released results including all votes except those 4,000 to 5,000 yet to arrive by mail, Blakeman was losing by 58 votes out of 88,708 cast, or 0.065 percent — about as razor-thin as it gets.
“This experience is nerve-wracking, to put it mildly,” incumbent Champaign County Coroner Duane Northrup said. “I believe I am handling the delays better than (wife) Christine and the rest of my family and friends.”
Tuesday wasn’t his first late night tracking results — “even with new technology, there always seems to be something that creates delays” — but the prospect of having to wait two weeks after Election Day to know whether he’d keep his job would be a new one for Northrup.
“I hope that will not be the case this year,” he said.
As of 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, he was winning by 2,465 votes, out of 88,817 cast, or 2.8 percent.
Even tracking results as they came in on the county clerk’s website wasn’t as simple as past years, with votes being added in batches — in-person first, followed by early votes.
Just before 10 p.m., the clerk’s website showed 100 percent of precincts reporting but a total vote of just 10,613. After erroneous media reports, Ammons took to Twitter to note: “Media should refrain from calling races, early vote and vote by mail have not been uploaded.”
Mark Shelden, Champaign County’s incumbent recorder of deeds, went to a 7 p.m. prayer service at St. Matthew Church and came out an hour later, hoping for results.
A Republican who once had the job now held by Ammons, a Democrat, Shelden was prepared to stay up as late as 2 a.m. if he had to.
He was critical of Tuesday’s showing but added: “As long as we get the right results out, it’ll be OK.”
After the latest results were released early Wednesday morning, he was losing to Democratic opponent Mike Ingram by 2,324 votes out of 88,684 cast, or 2.6 percent.
