Rockford, 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 Rockford, 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 Rockford, IL
Year
Total registered
2016
127,100
2018
133,232
2020
126,625
2022
144,838
2024
150,926
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
+181 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net −29,660 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Rockford, IL in Rockford, IL: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
−3,010
2012
−3,520
2013
−2,386
2014
−3,576
2015
−2,944
2016
−2,470
2017
−2,826
2018
−1,994
2019
−1,991
2021
−1,749
2022
−2,151
2023
−1,094
2024
−130
2025
+181
Rockford's Winnebago County shifted from reliably Democratic to genuine battleground territory as deindustrialization reshaped its working-class electorate, making it one of Illinois's few metro areas that statewide candidates treat as persuadable.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 11.5 points in 2008 and a Republican high of 68.8 points in 1920. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 1.8 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 1.9 points.
A population of 336,522, a 65% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $68,800 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN and Racine-Mount Pleasant, WI.
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.
Rockford, IL, Illinois. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/40420/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Rockford, IL, Illinois voted Republican by 1.9 points (R+1.9), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 145,603 votes cast, 70,101 went Democratic and 72,930 went Republican.
When did Rockford, IL, Illinois last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Rockford, IL, Illinois voted Democratic was 2012.
How many people live in Rockford, IL, Illinois?
Rockford, IL, Illinois has a population of 336,522 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Rockford, IL, Illinois?
Median household income in Rockford, IL, Illinois is $68,800 — below the national median of $80,734. The Illinois state median is $83,390.
What is the political history of Rockford, IL, Illinois?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Rockford, IL, Illinois from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 5 went Democratic and 28 went Republican.
