Almost 7,400 Obama Victory Margin in McHenry County – 5.3 Percentage Point Victory

Without early voting totals folded into the results, Barack Obama was leading John McCain by one percentage point.

After adding those early votes in, Obama’s lead leaped to 5.3 percentage points: 51.75% to 46.45%.

House Speaker Mike Madigan will have some explaining to do for his refusal to reinstate the straight party voting that Republican House Speaker Lee Daniels killed the ability to punch one hole and vote for every on the ticket.

Had straight party voting been in effect, there might have been more victories down the ticket.

As it stands now—with the Democratic Party-dominated early voting included in the totals—Democrats have picked up two county board seats.

Lake in the Hills village trustee Paula Yensen beat McHenry County Board Vice Chairman John Jung.

McHenry County Democratic Party Chair Kathy Bergan Schmidt turned out Nick Provenzano.

Both men were strongly supported by Pro-Life forces in McHenry County.

64th state representative Democratic Party candidate Robert Kaempfe got more Democratic primary votes than Mike Tryon received in the Republican primary last spring.

But Kaempfe could not convert that seeming advantage to victory. Instead the spread was almost 23 percentage points.

Democratic Party candidate for coroner, the only countywide Democrat who actually had his name on the ballot, also got more Democratic Party primary votes than incumbent Republican Marlene Lantz.

That did not convert to a close fall race.

Lantz got over 60% of the vote.

I am sure local Democrats will wonder what would have happened had there been straight party voting.

The countywide candidate who came closest to losing was McHenry County Auditor Pam Palmer.

She got almost 58% of the vote.

55% is considered a landslide.

Running best was McHenry County State’s Attorney Lou Bianchi. He almost got 62% of the vote in his re-election campaign. The possibility that the hotly contested primary election with Dan Regna would hurt his re-election chances against former Democratic Party Chair Tom Cynor did not materialize.


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