The campaign of Bobby Schilling, an aspiring Republican congressman from Illinois’s 17th congressional district, points to an interesting indicator from Tuesday. With neither Schilling nor incumbent Democrat Phil Hare facing any serious primary challenge, the vote totals in the district were 32,496 votes for Hare in the Democratic primary and 31,645 votes for Schilling in the Republican primary. Pretty darn close.

Obviously, most of those folks came out to vote in the respective Democrat and GOP gubernatorial and senatorial primaries, which were competitive. But this is a district with a Cook Partisan Voting Index score of D+3, where Obama carried 57 percent of the vote and John Kerry carried 51 percent.

Barone’s Almanac writes:

It would be fairly easy to drive directly from any part of the 17th District to another, but only if you crossed over into the 18th or 19th districts. There is, of course, a political explanation for this weird configuration. By removing the Republican counties east and north of the Quad Cities during redistricting, the 17th was made more safely Democratic, and neighboring districts were reinforced for Republicans. Macoupin County is historically Democratic, and central Springfield and Decatur are solidly Democratic.

Hare had no Republican opponent in 2008.