Fact check: Which Illinois counties flipped toward Democrats or Republicans between 2016 and 2020?

1. What the reporting actually claims — maps, not flips

The available articles provide county-by-county maps of Illinois’ presidential outcomes but do not identify counties that changed party preference between 2016 and 2020. Both Chicago Sun-Times pieces are described as offering interactive or static maps that show how each county voted in 2020 and in 2016 separately, but neither article presents a comparative list or analysis explicitly stating which counties “flipped” from one party to the other ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The central factual point from these sources is that visual data exists, while explicit flip attribution is absent.

2. What’s missing from the coverage — the flip analysis gap

None of the three pieces takes the extra step of comparing the two election-cycle maps to produce a definitive inventory of flips. The analyses note that the 2020 map shows Illinois’ 19 electoral votes going to Joe Biden, and they confirm that the maps reveal variation across counties, but they stop short of annotating or quantifying county-level switches ^{[1] [2]}. That omission means readers cannot rely on these particular articles alone to answer the original question without conducting a direct county-by-county comparison between the 2016 and 2020 map images or data tables.

3. How the maps can be used — visual comparison limits and opportunities

The articles’ maps are useful raw material: a reader can overlay, side-by-side compare, or manually cross-check county colors to infer flips. However, visual comparison carries limits—small counties, color ambiguity, map projection quirks, and the potential for data updates or corrections can produce errors if someone relies solely on eye-balling images ^{[1] [2] [3]}. To convert map visualizations into an authoritative flip list, one must access the underlying vote totals or tabular county results to confirm that a county’s plurality winner changed parties between 2016 and 2020, not merely rely on color shifts that may be misinterpreted.

4. Reconciling conflicting user expectations — why a list matters

Readers asking “which counties flipped?” seek a quantitative, verified list that can support downstream analysis (demographic change, turnout shifts, campaign strategy). The reviewed sources meet only the first requirement—displaying results by county—and fail on the verification step of documenting party changes. This gap matters because visual maps lack metadata such as vote margins and official canvass updates; a proper flip determination should reference certified county returns or downloadable CSVs rather than only map coloration ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Without that, any flip list derived solely from these articles would be provisional.

5. Practical next steps to produce a definitive flip list

To generate a verified list of Illinois counties that flipped between 2016 and 2020, compile official county-level vote totals for both elections and compare the plurality winners per county. The articles under review provide the necessary visual starting point but not the tabular data or explicit comparisons ^{[1] [2] [3]}. A rigorous approach would extract certified county returns for 2016 and 2020 and produce a side-by-side table highlighting switches, including vote margins to distinguish narrow swings from decisive flips. That procedure converts the maps’ visual signals into a reproducible dataset.

6. Bottom line: maps exist; a flip inventory does not — do the verification work

The sources confirm that Illinois’ 2020 county-level results are mapped and that 2016 maps are available, but they do not deliver the specific answer to the original question: which counties flipped between 2016 and 2020 ^{[1] [2] [3]}. Any authoritative reply requires extracting official county returns and performing a direct comparison. The articles provide helpful visual context but leave the key analytical step—producing and documenting a verified flip list—to the researcher.