Can a divorce ever truly be amicable?
Illinois secessionists, who liken their dynamic with their home state as being in an “unhappy couple,” think so. And they want out.
“We’d like to be friendly next-door neighbors,” the organizers of the “New Illinois” movement say.
Over the past several years, voters in a total of 33 Illinois counties have approved nonbinding refenda supporting secession from Illinois. In November, voters in seven more Illinois counties will consider similar advisory questions.
Counties that have approved or are considering nonbinding separation referenda are generally rural or small-town communities across western, central and southern Illinois. Among those that have approved such a referendum, Iroquois County, along the Indiana border, is the closest to Cook County, roughly 100 miles south of downtown Chicago. Its population is about 26,000.
These generally are very lightly populated parts of the state, but assuming the November votes go the same way the others have, people in 40 of Illinois’ 102 counties — nearly 40% — will have voted to leave a state that’s been in existence for 208 years.
It’s simply becoming harder to dismiss the effort as an ephemeral political curiosity. This looks more like the living, breathing representation of the lingering sentiment among plenty of downstate Illinoisans that their voice doesn’t matter here. It reflects a deeper sense of alienation from Chicagoland and Springfield that state leaders ignore at their own peril.
Up in our neck of the woods, the formation of a new state continues to be laughed off as “fringe.” And yet it continues to gain traction elsewhere in Illinois.
The effort itself is unlikely to succeed. But responding with ridicule instead of curiosity is a big part of what keeps this idea alive.
“I’d like you to get involved and make it a better place by working together with us, but if you want to leave, then get up and move,” Gov. JB Pritzker said in August 2025 to would-be secessionists.
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His administration has called these efforts a “stunt.” It looks more to us like a cry for help. A better response would be to lead with an open ear and a more concerted effort to respond to the concerns of people who are unhappy.
That people keep pushing for secession anyway in the face of nearly impossible odds tells us something about how people outside of Cook County feel about how the state is run. Likely, it tells us how plenty of people inside Cook County feel, too.
The movement undeniably is rooted largely in more conservative areas of Illinois. And the underlying urban-rural tensions it reflects are far older and broader than any single election cycle.
We exist in two very different places, both culturally and economically. Many downstate residents don’t simply disagree with Chicago politically; they feel misunderstood, looked down upon or ignored by people making decisions in Chicago and Springfield.
Instead of shrugging this off as a perennial annoyance, perhaps the better way to think about New Illinois is that it represents what some residents views as their last remaining avenue to be heard.
Their core complaint, repeated throughout New Illinois’ messaging, is what the organization calls a “lack of representative government.”
Many of their concerns look and sound familiar.
Despair over Illinois’ legacy of corruption and fiscal mismanagement.
Extreme gerrymandering.
High taxes.
In a moment when it’s unclear whether Illinois can even stop the Bears from leaving home, why would it surprise anyone that plenty of regular people are struggling with Illinois’ dysfunction?
If “New Illinois” doesn’t pan out, Indiana has offered to take in refugee counties seeking safe harbor.
Imagine how frustrated you have to be to support creation of a new state. Some sympathy is called for. People in these counties see one-party government, legislative maps and demographic realities making meaningful change impossible. Whether that perception is entirely fair is almost beside the point. It’s real.
Plenty of Democrats will write off this movement as MAGA, pointing out correctly that the counties expressing their distaste with Illinois are Republican.
Does that matter?
Unhappy unions can turn toxic, and once you get to the point where one party thinks their best shot is to go their own way, something is very wrong.
Still, we prefer to see these differences as not yet irreconcilable.
We believe many of these voters aren’t seriously voting to create a new state, they’re casting a protest vote against the one they already have. Whether you agree with that diagnosis or not, dismissing it as a joke only reinforces the sentiment.
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