Obama wins over heavily-Republican suburbs

Chicago Democrat Barack Obama did what at one time seemed politically impossible: win throughout the suburban region long considered home base for the GOP.

In DuPage County, where Republicans for decades have counted on strong turnout to boost the GOP ticket, Obama won 54 percent of the vote with 99 percent of the precincts in. To put Obama's early, unofficial total in DuPage County in perspective, his more than 224,000 votes there are nearly as many votes as Ronald Reagan received there in his 1984 landslide over Democrat Walter Mondale.

Not only are Obama's votes the most a Democrat has ever received in Dupage, it's within a couple thousand votes of being the most votes any presidential candidate has received there.

Similar tales of turnout for Obama were being told across suburban election offices.

In Kane County, 52 percent of voters sided with Obama.

Will County's Obama turnout was nearly 56 percent.

Suburban Cook County voters turned out nearly 2:1 for Obama, who had more than 66 percent of the vote.

Obama won more than 59 percent of the unofficial vote in Lake County, becoming the first Democratic presidential nominee to win there since Bill Clinton's razor's edge win over Republican Bob Dole in 1996.

Obama tallied nearly 52 percent of the vote in McHenry County to John McCain's 46 percent. In comparison, this county delivered more than 76 percent of its vote for Reagan back in 1984 and has constantly delivered consistent margins for Republicans until this election.

Statewide, Obama had won 64 percent of the vote with 71 percent of the vote counted.