A movement in a myriad of rural counties across deep blue states such as Illinois and California to split off and form new states appears to be gaining some steam in the wake of the Nov. 5 election.

All historical, county-level, voting statistics are from the MIT Election Data and Science Lab’s County Presidential Election Returns 2000-2020 database, as compiled in the Harvard Dataverse, V13.

Across Illinois and California, more red counties that feel steamrolled by blue-led governments are trying to split off By Joe Barrett Nov. 17, 2024 5:30 am ET ...

Meanwhile, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul wrote in a 2023 letter on the issue, "The Illinois Constitution of 1970 does not grant non-home-rule counties the power to secede from the state of ...

Second, neither the red state and blue state models of rural development have worked. The secessionist counties of Illinois look just like 40 or 50 declining rural counties in Indiana.

Second, neither the red state and blue state models of rural development have worked. The secessionist counties of Illinois look just like 40 or 50 declining rural counties in Indiana.

GH Merritt, chair of New Illinois State, another separatist group, tells me that between the two groups, 68 of Illinois’ 102 counties have an “active split movement”.

House Bill 1008 from Republican House Speaker Todd Huston would create a commission to study how 33 Illinois counties could ... the governments of deep-red Indiana and neighboring blue Illinois.

Lake Forest, an affluent, highly educated city of 19,000, is located in Lake County, a jurisdiction wedged between Chicago’s Cook County to the south and the border with Wisconsin to the north.