WEST RIDGE — Marooned in a sea of blue, three West Ridge precincts stood out on a map of last week's election results.
The precincts were among of the few places in Chicago where a majority of voters picked businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump for the presidency over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
In the 40th Precinct — which spans from Pratt to California, west along North Shore and then south between Mozart and Francisco, and then Albion to Kedzie — Trump got 292 votes, or just over 56 percent of the vote. Clinton garnered 209 votes, or 40 percent.
Just to the north in the 11th Precinct — which is bound by Pratt Boulevard and Sacramento, Lunt and California avenues — Trump won by an even larger margin: 60 percent against Clinton's 34 percent, or 214 votes to 122. In the 5th Precinct, which slices between Jarvis and Fargo, and extends to Kedzie, Touhy and Sacramento, Trump won by a single vote.
The three are the only precincts in Rogers Park, Edgewater or West Ridge that went for Trump. The rest overwhelmingly went for Clinton.
In West Ridge, the areas where Trump showed dominance are residential and populated by mostly whites — 89 percent of the 40th Precinct's residents are white, census data shows. There is a large number of conservative and Orthodox Jewish residents, and the neighborhoods have large populations of residents ages 40-65 or older, including 41 percent of those who live in the 11th Precinct and 35 percent who live in the 40th.
The areas are split about evenly between women and men, the data shows.
Few traces are left of the contentious campaign between Trump and Clinton in the three precincts, though many of the single-story brick bungalows and neighboring mini-mansions still displayed lawn signs distributed by Agudath Israel of Illinois, a Jewish nonprofit that encourages voting.
Rachel, an Orthodox Jewish 40th precinct voter who did not want to give her last name, said she lived in a "divided house," withe she and her husband voting for different candidates.
Rachel, who chose Clinton, described her family as "Democratic" as well as "right-wing," but she said she was surprised when she learned her husband was voting for Trump. She said Clinton's campaign seemed to focus more on her becoming the first woman in the Oval Office than playing up her experience and achievements.
"Clinton was primarily riding on a card of femininity and very little on a card of accomplishment," she said. "She did accomplish things as first lady, she accomplished things as secretary of state, but she did not use that as a highlight in her campaign."
"She used her femininity as, 'Look at my whole goal for the future, I'm going to be the first female president. It just didn't seem like the right choice in that moment."
Rachel said she wasn't surprised by the number of people who supported Trump in the precinct over Clinton, in particular because they did not want a woman to become president.
"It does not surprise me, because as diverse an area as this is, I see a lot of people had disdain on their face when discussing having a female president," she said. "They were resistant to that change. ... I discussed this with men and women, and the concept of a woman running the country just did not sit well with them."
Few presidential political yard signs could be seen in West Ridge recently, but many residents in the 40th and 11th precincts had signs encouraging voting. [DNAinfo/Linze Rice]
Sitting on a bench in Chippewa Park two days after the election, longtime resident Eli Cohen said he was one of the nearly half of eligible American voters in the precinct who didn't show up at a poll on Election Day. An Orthodox Jew senior citizen, he's never voted before.
"Why would I want to take the responsibility of putting something which is not good in office? Why should that fall on me?" asked Cohen, who said he grew up in an upper-class household and is not working currently. "There were a few people who said it's wrong to vote."
An 11th precinct resident who would only identify himself as David L., said he didn't "follow politics" and was reluctant to vote at all. Yet he showed support for Trump at the polls at the urging of his friends and family.
"If it were up to me I wouldn't have voted, but I had to vote for somebody, so I voted," David said. "It was the lesser of two evils, and I felt Donald Trump was the better of the two just from listening to the news, and taking recommendations from other people. I don't particularly follow [politics]; I don't really care. [My vote] was just based off of other people is really what it was."
One man walking a yorkie who did not want to give his name said, "Hillary is a crook; what else is there to say?" as he passed by.
Resident Norman Stein said he also voted for Trump. When asked why, Stein said that he "hated her more."
Stein also cited a desire for change he said he thought would more likely come into reality under Trump.
"She's the same old, same old," Stein said. "She's not trustworthy to get anything done she's telling us as a truth. ... Maybe Mr. Trump will give us some change because she certainly will not."
Jesus Medina, a Mexican-American Clinton voter who has lived in the 11th precinct for 12 years and Chicago for 25, said he knew many of his neighbors supported Trump but doesn't feel angry toward them.
Medina said he was disappointed that Trump won because he felt the demeaning rhetoric used by the soon-to-be-president didn't set a "good impression" for young people, like his two children in middle school and high school.
"With the example he gave us through the TV, it's terrible for my family, even my kids because they say, 'What's going to happen to us?' — they're afraid," Medina said. "We told the kids nothing is going to happen, everything is going to be OK, I wish that he would have sent a better message for the kids, knowing he was going to be our president.
"But now that he's president, I have to follow him. I hope that he brings really nice perspectives for everybody, for me, too, not just for [Trump supporters]. I'm not mad at anybody because they voted for him."
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