The Closest Presidential Election in Illinois in Decades – NBC Chicago

4:30 a.m. UPDATE: Early Wednesday morning, NBC News predicted that Donald Trump will be the president-elect after his victory in Wisconsin. Our latest story can be found here. Our original story continues below.

While Vice President Kamala Harris continued Democrats' winning streak in Illinois, former President Donald Trump's performance is one of Republicans' best in decades.

Harris was projected to win in Illinois after the polls closed on Tuesday, but Trump's performance represents his best in the state in his three elections and also marks a significant tightening of the presidential race in the state.

According to NBC News, as of 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, Harris had a lead of 223,614 votes over Trump, a margin of 4.2 points.

If these results hold, it would be the closest presidential election in Illinois since 1988, when George HW Bush defeated Michael Dukakis to win his bid for the White House.

This election was also the last time a Republican won Illinois, with the GOP winning the state in six consecutive elections following Lyndon B. Johnson's victory in 1964.

Since then, Democrats have won the state by double digits, with former President Barack Obama and former President Joe Biden each winning the state by more than a million votes.

Here's a breakdown of the last nine elections prior to this year:

2020: Biden +17% (1,025,024 votes)

2016: Clinton +16.88% (944,714 votes)

2012: Obama +16.87% (884,296 votes)

2008: Obama +25.14% (1,388,169 votes)

2004: Kerry +10.34% (545,604 votes)

2000: Gore +14.02% (569,605 votes)

1996: Clinton +17.51% (754,723 votes)

1992: Clinton +14.24% (719,254 votes)

1988: Bush +2.09% (94,999 votes)

During that time, Illinois has gone from 24 Electoral College votes in 1998 to 19 in this year's election cycle.

In his first two elections in Illinois, Trump increased his share of the total vote each time, winning 38.36% of the vote in 2016 and 40.55% of the vote in 2020.