Mitt Romney could beat President Barack Obama in his home state of Illinois, a new survey shows.
A poll conducted by Illinois-based pollster and political strategist Michael McKeon found Obama leading presumptive GOP challenger Romney 49 percent to 37 percent in Cook County, where Chicago is located,
The Daily Caller reports. The president is ahead by a far slimmer margin in a county that he should be trouncing Romney in.
Cook, the state’s most populous county, is also the most Democratic-leaning in the state, The DC reports.
“He has to come out of Cook County with a big lead or he’s gonna have problems downstate,” said McKeon, who said that based on the numbers he had seen, Obama polled only in the 40s in downstate Illinois.
“It’s not like his policies are very popular downstate,” McKeon told The DC. “He’s viewed as more part of Chicago than he is part of Illinois.”
According to the poll, which surveyed 629 registered voters last week, Obama’s problems are not in Chicago proper, but in suburban Cook County, The DC reports.
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.