In 2020 Biden got 74% of the vote in Chicago.

I would guess that Biden got a lot of votes from independents and even republicans who were tired of the previous president's shenanigans.

The overall vote was very close in both 2016 and 2020

Chicago (Cook County) went 83% for Clinton in 2016, 74% for Obama in 2012, 76% for Obama in 2008, 79% for Kerry in 2004 and 68% for Gore in 2000. Biden's 2020 numbers were on the low side of average for a Democrat candidate there, probably didn't involve an unusual number of independents or disaffected Republicans...

St. Louis City went 82.71% for Obama for context. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidentia... so higher than cook... but the city of stl is generally even more blue and was one of the highest rates for obama nation wide. STL took it as a point of pride to vote more for obama than chicago where obmama is from.

It’s important to parse the language and understand the domain.

Major party affiliation of red + blue usually only adds up to about 60-80% in most regions. Not everyone is eligible to vote, registered to vote, or votes regularly. If people look at the percentage of the vote that Biden/Trump got in the most recent election, they are looking at the narrow end of the funnel. The “55% blue” is likely a cross-section closer to the beginning of the funnel.

Also worth pointing out that Chicago has a 100+ year old “political machine”. I don’t remember the specifics, but each neighborhood has extremely powerful local politicians that hold a party office, but not a government office. It is not typical for American cities.

As it was explained to me, most of the justice problems are in the Greater Chicago Area, so if anything that sidebar by me is being charitable about how fucked up it is.

Aren’t most of the people in Illinois in the GCA?