BLUE STATE BLUES: Illinois’ population has shrunk by 78,000 in three years.

In fact, the Census reports that 114,144 residents fled Illinois last year — the equivalent of the entire city of Peoria, the state’s seventh largest municipality. When offset with local births, deaths, and others moving in, it comes to a net loss of 37,508 residents in just one year. And the Tribune report adds that this is not just a rural or downstate problem, as some might have expected previously — Chicago has been losing population as well.

And then there’s this, which makes the idea behind Donald Trump’s clumsy and patronizing pitch for black votes seem a bit less crazy, and in fact possibly even something potent if ever made competently:

Leading the exodus to warmer states is the black population, in search of more stable incomes, safe neighborhoods and prosperity. Between 2014 and 2015, more than 9,000 black residents left Cook County.

The overall number of residents that Illinois has lost is alarming in historical terms. It was about 12,000 in 2014, 28,000 in 2015, and nearly 40,000 this year, for a net loss of nearly 80,000 residents over three years. That represents the equivalent of Bloomington — Illinois’ twelfth largest city. The shrinkage is so acute that Pennsylvania could soon overtake Illinois as the nation’s sixth-largest state, even though it lost (a mere) 8,000 residents on net last year.

But where are they going, and are they bringing their failed voting habits with them?