For twenty years, Pulaski County voted Democratic. Then it stopped.

Pulaski County sits at Illinois's southern tip along the Mississippi, with a population under 7,500 that has declined for decades. Despite a historically biracial rural electorate, recent presidential margins have shifted decisively, reaching R+34 in 2024.

The unraveling was not abrupt. The Democratic margin peaked at thirty-two points in 1964 and narrowed across the late twentieth century. The 2012 election carried the county to the Republican party for the first time in many years, by six points. Between 2020 and 2024 the county moved three points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was thirty-four points.

The economic context is severe: a median household income of $42,463 — among the lowest at this geographic scale — and a 25% poverty rate. The county's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Macon County and Henderson County.