McCain and Obama reap high tallies

Illinois voters handed decisive victories to Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain in a primary that drew hundreds of thousands to the polls despite dismal weather Tuesday.

The high tallies shut out Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee from picking up any delegates here and seriously dampened Hillary Clinton's take.

Obama, the state's junior senator from Chicago's South Side, outpaced Clinton, who was raised in Park Ridge, with about 65 percent of the vote, according to early, unofficial results late Tuesday.

Neither Democrat invested serious resources in the state. Clinton largely left her Illinois campaign in the hands of a few dozen ardent volunteers, who lacked the support of TV ads or high-profile visits. Obama used his legions of local supporters to help run operations in other critical primary states.

On the Republican side, McCain pulled in nearly 50 percent of the vote, with Mitt Romney taking about just under 30 percent and Mike Huckabee winning less than 15 percent, according to early, unofficial results.

McCain enjoyed the support of DuPage County's GOP establishment and former governors Jim Edgar and Jim Thompson. Many of them switched to backing McCain after former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race.

"The Giuliani departure helped us significantly, but John McCain does play well in Illinois on his own," said state Rep. Jim Durkin, a Western Springs Republican who helped lead McCain's Illinois campaign.

Both Romney and McCain stopped in to Illinois' suburbs for well-attended campaign rallies the weekend before the primary, but neither spent much money on ads or staff to win the state.

Suburban Cook, Lake, McHenry, Kane and DuPage counties gave McCain 180,030 votes to Romney's 99,144 and Huckabee's 42,056, according to unofficial results with 94 percent of precincts reporting.

Huckabee's presence was virtually nonexistent in Illinois, which held the fourth highest number of GOP delegates of any state voting Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Clinton faced an uphill battle here from the start. Obama easily won over most Chicago, suburban and downstate voters during his 2004 Senate primary and general election runs.

"This was truly an insurgent campaign," said Kevin O'Keefe, a former Clinton White House staffer who helped run the Illinois campaign. "We did our best to stress them out. We did our best to make them work."

Suburban Cook, Lake, McHenry, Kane and DuPage counties gave Obama 424,465 votes to Clinton's 241,788, according to unofficial results with 94 percent of precincts reporting late Tuesday.

While Clinton didn't visit the region in the waning days of the campaign, she did patch into Park Ridge on Monday night as part of her 21-state, satellite-fed town hall meeting. Several hundred local supporters attended the event.