Olney, IL is a small city located in Richland County, Illinois. The city has an active political climate and many of its citizens are engaged in local politics. The mayor of Olney is Adam Schwenk, who was elected in 2017 and his term runs until 2021. Olney also has several city council members, each representing their own ward within the city. Additionally, there are other local political positions that help ensure the needs of the community are met. Overall, politics in Olney is quite important to the citizens and they take part in deciding which candidates will lead them into the future.
The political climate in Olney, IL is moderately conservative.
Richland County, IL is very conservative. In Richland County, IL 22.7% of the people voted Democrat in the last presidential election, 75.4% voted for the Republican Party, and the remaining 2.0% voted Independent.
In the last Presidential election, Richland county remained overwhelmingly Republican, 75.4% to 22.7%.
Richland county voted Republican in every Presidential election since 2000.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index
Olney, IL is moderately conservative.
Richland County, Illinois is very conservative.
Illinois is moderately liberal.
The BestPlaces liberal/conservative index is based on recent voting in national elections, federal campaign contributions by local residents, and consumer personality profiles.
VoteWord™
Displaying 20 years of Presidential voting, visualized in one word.
Olney, Illinois: R R R R R R
How It Works:
Here at BestPlaces, we were looking at the voting patterns since the 2000 election and realized that we could express the results of each election as one letter. R if the Republican Party candidate won, D if the Democratic Party candidate won and I if the Independent Party candidate won. The six elections (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020) would be expressed as six-letter word (R R D R R).
Then we went a little further and added the dimension of magnitude. If the difference of victory was greater than 10 percent, the letter is upper case, and lower case if the difference was less than 10 percent. This allows us to see interesting voting patterns at just a glance.
Here's the VoteWord for Iowa d r d d r. In the last six elections the state has been closely contested, voting narrowly for the Republican Party candidate in 2016 and 2020 after voting for the Democratic Party in 2008 and 2012. Virginia (r r d d d D) has voted for the Democratic Party in the last three elections.
Individual Campaign Contributions in Olney, IL
In the last 4 years (2018-2021), there were 698 contributions totaling $14,680 to the Democratic Party and liberal campaigns, averaging $21 per contribution.
In the last 4 years, there were 61 contributions totaling $11,804 to the Republican Party and conservative campaigns, averaging $194 per contribution.
(source: Federal Election Commission)