Ottawa, IL · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Ottawa, IL, by party and cycle.
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
Total registered voters, over time
Registered voters
Voter registration in Ottawa, IL
Year
Total registered
2016
112,472
2018
109,709
2020
110,012
2022
98,575
2024
103,303
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
+238 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net −7,471 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Ottawa, IL in Ottawa, IL: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−597
2012
−831
2013
−624
2014
−987
2015
−1,033
2016
−855
2017
−724
2018
−390
2019
−658
2021
−544
2022
−609
2023
+235
2024
−92
2025
+238
Ottawa anchors the La Salle County micropolitan area, where a historically unionized industrial base has shifted alongside broader rural realignment, producing notable swings in presidential margins over the past three election cycles.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 15.0 points in 1932 and a Republican high of 54.2 points in 1920. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 3.8 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 19.9 points.
A population of 147,181, a 83% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $72,296 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Michigan City-La Porte, IN and Auburn, NY.
Akashic
Political twins — metros
The metros whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
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All citations released under CC BY 4.0. Attribution: Akashic Intelligence.
Ottawa, IL, Illinois. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/36837/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Ottawa, IL, Illinois voted Republican by 19.9 points (R+19.9), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 71,841 votes cast, 28,183 went Democratic and 42,515 went Republican.
When did Ottawa, IL, Illinois last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Ottawa, IL, Illinois voted Democratic was 2008.
How many people live in Ottawa, IL, Illinois?
Ottawa, IL, Illinois has a population of 147,181 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Ottawa, IL, Illinois?
Median household income in Ottawa, IL, Illinois is $72,296 — below the national median of $80,734. The Illinois state median is $83,390.
What is the political history of Ottawa, IL, Illinois?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Ottawa, IL, Illinois from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 8 went Democratic and 25 went Republican.
