Editing Lake County, Illinois (section)

==Politics==
As a historic [[Yankee]] settlement, Lake County was initially a stronghold of the [[Free Soil Party]]. In [[United States presidential election in Illinois, 1848|the 1848 presidential election]], it was Free Soil nominee and former president [[Martin van Buren]]’s strongest county, giving him over 58 percent of the vote.

Consequently, Lake County would turn rock-solid Republican for most of the next century and a half. After narrowly supporting Democrat [[Franklin Pierce]] in [[United States presidential election in Illinois, 1852|1852]], it voted Republican at all but one presidential election from 1856 to 1960. This tradition was only broken in [[United States presidential election in Illinois, 1912|1912]], when the GOP was mortally divided and Lake County voted for [[Progressive Party (United States, 1912)|Progressive Party]] nominee and former president [[Theodore Roosevelt]] over conservative incumbent [[William Howard Taft]].

In [[United States presidential election in Illinois, 1964|1964]] the Republican Party nominated [[Barry Goldwater]], whose hostility to the Yankee establishment and strongly conservative platform were sufficient to leave many traditional Republicans to stay home or even to vote for Lyndon Johnson, who narrowly became the first Democrat to win an absolute majority in the county since [[James K. Polk]] in 1844, and the first to win it at all since Pierce in 1852. Between 1968 and 1988, however, Lake County became powerfully Republican once more, with no Democrat cracking forty percent of the vote.

However, as in the other collar counties, the Republican edge narrowed considerably in the 1990s, and [[Bill Clinton]] actually won it with a 166-vote plurality in 1996–the only time that Clinton won any of the collar counties besides [[Will County]] during his two campaigns for president. After narrowly voting for [[George W. Bush]] twice, in 2008 it swung over dramatically to support Democrat [[Barack Obama]], who carried it by almost 20 points. Obama won it but by a slimmer margin in 2012. [[Hillary Clinton]] won it handily in 2016, tallying her second-best margin in the state. At 36%, [[Donald Trump]]'s performance in the county was the worst of any Republican presidential nominee since 1912. In 2020, [[Joe Biden]] won 61% of the vote, the highest percentage of the vote for any candidate since 1988 and the highest ever attained by a Democrat.

Lake County has the highest payout for wrongful conviction in the United States. [[Juan Rivera (wrongful conviction)|Juan Rivera]] was awarded $20 million, the largest wrongful conviction settlement in United States history, including $2 million from John E. Reid & Associates, who were known for the [[Reid technique]] of questioning suspects. This technique has been widely criticized for its history of eliciting confessions that were later determined to be false. Rivera was questioned twice at Reid headquarters by an employee of the company during his interrogation, which lasted for several days. Another payout was made to Jerry Hobbs. [[Kathleen Zellner]] settled Jerry Hobbs' civil rights case for $7.75 million. Hobbs was incarcerated for 66 months. This was the largest pre-trial detainee settlement in the United States.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.thenationaltriallawyers.org/2014/03/7-75-settlement-father-wrongly-jailed-murder/ | title=$7.75 Million Settlement for Father Wrongly Jailed for Daughter's Murder - the National Trial Lawyers }}</ref>

{{PresHead|place=Lake 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|access-date=May 8, 2018|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|Democratic|120,402|184,642|8,514|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2020|Democratic|123,594|204,032|8,049|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2016|Democratic|109,767|171,095|22,658|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2012|Democratic|129,764|153,757|3,972|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2008|Democratic|118,545|177,242|4,113|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2004|Republican|139,081|134,352|1,862|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|2000|Republican|120,988|115,058|6,118|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1996|Democratic|93,149|93,315|18,300|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1992|Republican|99,000|81,693|43,294|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1988|Republican|114,115|64,327|1,191|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1984|Republican|118,401|53,947|876|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1980|Republican|96,350|48,287|20,216|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1976|Republican|92,231|57,741|2,922|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1972|Republican|92,052|47,416|344|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1968|Republican|68,999|43,409|9,495|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1964|Democratic|58,840|62,785|42|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1960|Republican|67,809|46,941|149|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1956|Republican|66,781|32,279|129|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1952|Republican|54,929|32,353|145|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1948|Republican|39,456|22,192|720|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1944|Republican|35,674|25,453|183|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1940|Republican|38,242|24,965|254|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1936|Republican|27,548|24,524|1,603|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1932|Republican|23,994|21,139|1,989|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1928|Republican|26,814|12,252|521|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1924|Republican|18,229|2,008|3,913|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1920|Republican|15,712|2,321|1,063|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1916|Republican|12,905|5,447|924|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1912|Progressive|2,183|2,436|5,494|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1908|Republican|6,392|2,264|723|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1904|Republican|6,635|1,592|378|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1900|Republican|5,136|2,235|217|Illinois}}
{{PresRow|1896|Republican|5,027|1,777|133|Illinois}}
{{PresFoot|1892|Republican|2,932|1,964|233|Illinois}}