Republican candidates in Champaign County and the rest of Illinois have to be hoping that the Barack Obama magic wears off soon. They won't be able to survive another election like Tuesday's.

It was a historic day in Champaign County, where voters took Democratic ballots by a margin of 23,103 to 15,484.

It's the first time Democratic voters have outnumbered Republican voters in a primary election in the county in at least 70 years, if ever. Eight years ago, in the last presidential primary where there was no incumbent president on the ballot, Republican voters outnumbered Democrats, 21,308 to 11,762. The previous peak for Democratic primary voters was 17,110 in 1992. The Republican record is 21,308 in 2000.

Tuesday's overall turnout of 39,055 voters, including 173 Green Party voters, also was a record, improving on the previous high of nearly 34,000 voters in 2000.

Several precincts in the county ran short of Democratic ballots, and freshly printed sheets had to be rushed to the polls. A precinct in Savoy where four years ago Republicans outnumbered Democrats, 272-161, had the tables turned Tuesday. Democrats this time outpolled Republicans, 353-271.

And the Obama phenomenon wasn't limited to Champaign County. In normally Republican Vermilion County, there were 2,000 more Democratic voters than Republican. In Bloomington, there were 800 more Democratic voters than Republican, and Obama got 72 percent of that Democratic vote.

In Coles County, also normally a Republican stronghold, there were 5,219 Democratic ballots taken Tuesday to 4,929 GOP ballots.

Obama wasn't quite invincible in his home state – he lost 13 small southern Illinois counties to Hillary Clinton – but where he won, he generated big turnouts. If he's the Democratic presidential nominee in November, his coattails could drag along some other Democratic candidates – just what Illinois' woebegone Republican Party doesn't need.

In Cunningham 10, a precinct that votes at the Urbana Free Library, turnout was a phenomenal 70 percent. And it's clear the big attraction was the Democratic presidential race. Eighty-five percent of the 399 people who took ballots there took a Democratic ballot. And every single one of those Democrats voted for president. Seventy-five percent voted for Obama.

In about a dozen University of Illinois campus precincts, turnout was unusually good for a primary – around 25 percent. Voters there took Democratic ballots by a wide margin – and gave Obama about 80 percent of the vote. In one precinct – Cunningham 5, which votes at the Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Hall – Obama won with 89 percent. Countywide, he got 73 percent.

On the Republican side, John McCain fared pretty well in Champaign County, considering that he had no campaign organization. McCain beat Mitt Romney by 136 votes – 5,677 to 5,541. McCain won most precincts in the county but generally by no more than a handful of votes.

Park district tax vote

The big Obama vote was almost enough to help pass a big property tax increase for the Urbana Park District.

Twelve precincts, mostly in the university area and near Meadowbrook Park, voted for the tax increase. The precincts with the biggest pluralities for the tax hike were Cunningham 9 and Cunningham 12, both generally known as UI faculty neighborhoods. Each approved the park district proposal by more than 100 votes.

The greatest opposition came from neighborhoods in east and southeast Urbana. In Cunningham 20, which votes at Sunnycrest Mall, 72 percent of voters said no to the tax increase. It also was the Urbana precinct with the highest percentage of Republican voters Tuesday – 38 percent.

But it wasn't just Republicans who voted no; Cunningham 1, the precinct with the greatest population of African-Americans and an area that went 95 percent Democratic on Tuesday, voted down the tax hike by a 2-to-1 margin.

The Cowsen line

I figured that Devan Cowsen, a candidate in name only, would be lucky to get 10 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary in County Board District 9. I anticipated establishing "the Cowsen line," a figure below which no future candidate who was trying could sink.

But Cowsen somehow got nearly 24 percent of the vote without campaigning, putting up yard signs or returning reporters' phone calls.

His opponent, Brendan McGinty, said he never met the man.

Cowsen managed to get a greater share of the vote than Alfred Ivy, who totaled less than 19 percent in his Democratic primary challenge of State's Attorney Julia Rietz. But at least Ivy showed up for debates, interviews and candidate forums.

And finally, Andy Martin

Illinois Republicans came dangerously close to making perennial contender Andy Martin (also known as Anthony Martin-Trigona) their candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Martin lost Champaign County (where he is remembered for run-ins four decades ago with judges, prosecutors, county clerks and others) with just 26 percent of the vote.

But he won 35 of Illinois' 102 counties, getting as much as 60 percent of the vote in one county, Gallatin. Martin, who now lives in Chicago, also won Coles, DeWitt and Edgar counties in central Illinois. He finished second statewide to Dr. Steve Sauerberg, who now gets to run against incumbent Sen. Dick Durbin in the fall.

Tom Kacich is a News-Gazette editor and columnist. His column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. He can be reached at kacich@news-gazette.com or at 351-5221.