Editing Whiteside County, Illinois (section)

==Politics==
{{PresHead|place=Whiteside County, Illinois|source=<ref>{{cite web|url=http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS|title=Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections|first=David|last=Leip|website=uselectionatlas.org|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180323225526/https://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/|archive-date=March 23, 2018}}</ref>}}
<!-- PresRow should be {{PresRow|Year|Winning party|GOP vote #|Dem vote #|3rd party vote #|State}} -->
{{PresRow|2024|Republican|14,898|11,012|640|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2020|Republican|14,527|12,253|653|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2016|Republican|12,615|11,035|1,932|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2012|Democratic|10,448|14,833|547|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2008|Democratic|10,883|15,607|504|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2004|Democratic|12,959|13,723|191|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2000|Democratic|11,252|12,886|699|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1996|Democratic|8,859|11,913|2,572|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1992|Democratic|10,146|12,329|4,678|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1988|Republican|12,978|11,328|156|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1984|Republican|16,743|11,226|127|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1980|Republican|17,389|7,191|1,484|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1976|Republican|14,308|11,255|291|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1972|Republican|17,305|7,909|87|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1968|Republican|15,177|8,132|1,225|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1964|Republican|12,940|12,536|0|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1960|Republican|17,434|9,112|46|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1956|Republican|17,589|6,158|37|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1952|Republican|17,294|6,238|67|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1948|Republican|12,922|5,299|154|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1944|Republican|14,162|5,555|171|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1940|Republican|15,752|7,356|134|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1936|Republican|12,666|7,982|595|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1932|Republican|11,388|7,010|228|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1928|Republican|13,580|4,079|69|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1924|Republican|11,532|1,957|2,087|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1920|Republican|10,923|1,927|513|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1916|Republican|10,045|3,839|623|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1912|Progressive|1,437|1,996|4,278|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1908|Republican|5,257|2,140|600|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1904|Republican|5,636|1,546|737|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1900|Republican|5,663|2,758|266|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1896|Republican|5,577|2,788|159|Illinois}}
{{PresFoot|1892|Republican|3,819|2,779|474|Illinois}}
Whiteside County has a political history typical of Northern Illinois. Between its first election in 1840, and 1852, it always favored [[Whig Party (United States)|the Whig Party]], and although Whiteside was not as strong for the [[Free Soil Party]] as counties to the east like [[Boone County, Illinois|Boone]] and [[Lake County, Illinois|Lake]], it gave substantial votes to that party in 1848<ref>Géoelections; [http://geoelections.free.fr/USA/elec_comtes/1848vanb.htm Popular Vote for Martin van Buren (Free Soil)] (.xlsx file for €15)</ref> and 1852<ref>Géoelections; [http://geoelections.free.fr/USA/elec_comtes/1852hale.htm Popular Vote for John P. Hale] (.xlsx file for €15)</ref> and became powerfully Republican for the next century-and-a-quarter. Between 1856 and 1988 the only time Whiteside failed to vote for the Republican candidate was in 1912, when Progressive Party nominee and former President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] won it by a 2-to-1 margin over conservative incumbent [[William Howard Taft]]. Between at least 1880 and 1960, no Democratic presidential nominee ever won 40 percent of Whiteside's vote, and even [[Alf Landon]] in 1936 carried the county by 22 percent when losing 46 of 48 states.

In 1964, the Republican Party nominated [[Barry Goldwater]], whose hostility to the Yankee establishment and strongly conservative policies were sufficient to leave many traditional Republicans to stay home or even to vote for [[Lyndon Johnson]].<ref>Phillips, Kevin P.; ''The Emerging Republican Majority'', pp. 61-65 {{ISBN|9780691163246}}</ref> In this climate, Goldwater managed to keep the Republican Party's winning streak in Whiteside alive, but by just 1.6%, or 404 votes.

The county continued to vote comfortably more Republican than the nation for the next four elections, including for county native [[Ronald Reagan]]. But in 1984, even as Reagan increased his national margin by over 8%, his margin in Whiteside was more than halved, from a little over 40% in 1980 to 19.6% in 1984. The county was only marginally more Republican than the nation in 1984. The Democratic trend continued in 1988, as George H. W. Bush carried it by 6.8%, a somewhat smaller margin than he won the national popular vote by, making it election the first one in which Whiteside voted more Democratic than the nation in at least a century. In 1992, it gave Bill Clinton a plurality win, with a comfortable 8.0% margin over George H. W. Bush. In 1996, the county gave Bill Clinton an outright majority. The county went on to vote Democratic for the next four consecutive elections, giving Gore, Kerry, and Obama four straight majorities.

However, in 2016, concerns over long-term economic decline saw much of the Rust Belt swing heavily towards Donald Trump,<ref>{{Cite web|last=Lounsbury|first=Jud|date=December 16, 2016|title=Pssst...Trump: You Won By Running to Clinton's Left|url=https://progressive.org/%3Fq%3Dnode/189120/|access-date=December 4, 2021|website=Progressive.org|language=en-us}}</ref> and Whiteside flipped from a 16.9% Obama win in 2012 to a Trump plurality in 2016. In 2020, Trump won a majority&mdash;the first for a Republican since 1988&mdash;and increased his margin from 6.2% to 8.3%.