The November election is still a very fresh, and for Democrats in Illinois, a very pleasant memory, but several wholly inaccurate and absurd myths are already being spread.

The first myth is that the black vote in Chicago and suburban Cook County is what put Democrat Rod Blagojevich over the top in his bid for governor, providing the bulk of his 244,070-vote statewide majority over Jim Ryan. That is untrue. Blagojevich won because he increased his party's share of the white vote.

The second myth is that incumbent Republican state Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka bucked the statewide Democratic sweep and won because she appealed to black voters and because had the support of U.S. Representative Bobby Rush (D-1), and that therefore future Republican candidates should emulate her approach. That is untrue. Topinka got roughly 15 percent of the black vote, but she won because of solid backing from suburbanites and Chicago independents.

The third myth is that U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-4), a big Blagojevich booster, galvanized Hispanic voters and produced a huge Democratic vote. That is untrue. The Hispanic vote was, as usual, anemic. In the overall electoral picture, the Hispanic vote is still a proverbial drop in the bucket.

And the fourth myth is that the Democrats' sweep of every statewide office except treasurer ensures another blowout in 2004, when President George Bush and U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald will be atop the ticket in Illinois. Despite the Republicans' statewide baggage in 2002, the Democrats' victory was not convincing. If Bush wins Illinois big in 2004, he could carry Fitzgerald to a second term.

Based on an analysis of the election returns, here are the indisputable facts:

Fact Number One: Blagojevich won because he increased his share of the white vote, not because of any surge of support by blacks or Hispanics. White voters soured on the Republicans, due primarily to Governor George Ryan's association with the licenses-for-bribes scandal, as well as to Jim Ryan's listless campaign. If Blagojevich expects to win a second term in 2006, he will have to keep those white voters in his corner, which means he can't be tarred as a liberal, tax-and-spend governor -- and which also means he can't support a lot of the programs pushed by black politicians.

Blagojevich got 548,664 votes in Chicago, 99,061 more than Glenn Poshard got as the 1998 Democratic candidate for governor but 45,307 fewer than incumbent senator Carol Moseley-Braun got that year. In Chicago's 20 black-majority wards, Blagojevich got 270,583 votes (to Jim Ryan's 18,519), or 93.5 percent of the total vote. Because of that lopsided result, some in the news media have concluded that Blagojevich somehow owes his election to monolithic black support and that he must now satisfy the demands of black politicians.

But in 1998, Downstater Poshard, who was anti-gun control and anti-abortion rights and who was not particularly well liked by black politicians, got 251,958 votes in Chicago's black wards -- roughly 89 percent of the total. Moseley-Braun got 315,890 votes in those wards, or about 98 percent.

The fact is that Blagojevich won the black wards because African Americans habitually vote Democratic. Blagojevich's total of 270,583 votes in those wards was just slightly less than the total of 275,670 by Democratic Secretary of State Jesse White, who is black, and slightly more than attorney general candidate Lisa Madigan's 266,719. Even state Comptroller Dan Hynes, whose father, Dan Hynes, ran against Harold Washington for mayor in 1987 and whose surname is not a magnet for black votes, got 259,757 votes in those wards in his re-election bid. In the five Cook County suburban townships with black majorities, Blagojevich got 112,226 votes (to Ryan's 50,787), virtually equal to Madigan's 107,251.

The point is this: Blagojevich got almost 94 percent of the Chicago black vote and almost 70 percent of the suburban black vote because black voters generally will not support Republicans. Because African Americans in Chicago virtually always vote Democratic, Blagojevich realistically owes them nothing, and he can ignore their demands in the expectation that they'll vote for him anyway in 2006.

Blagojevich won because he carried Chicago by 401,731 votes (compared to Poshard's 1998 margin of 238,237). Poshard was very popular in outlying white ethnic wards, but he was very unpopular along the Lakefront in independent wards. Blagojevich got 62,081 more votes than Poshard did in the white ethnic and Lakefront wards, 18,625 more votes than Poshard in the black wards, and 18,355 more votes than Poshard in the Hispanic-majority wards.

And Blagojevich won because he lost Downstate to Ryan by just 64,115 votes and the suburban counties around Cook by just 152,656 votes. To win a statewide election, a Republican must win those areas by at least 400,000 votes.

Fact Number Two: Topinka, seeking her third term as state treasurer, won an impressive 303,522-vote statewide victory over Democrat Tom Dart. Given that she won her first term in 1994 by 77,018 votes and her second in 1998 by 62,279, her third effort was certainly the charm. Topinka won because she dramatically increased her level of support from white voters, particularly in Chicago's white-majority wards and in the Collar Counties. She did so because she's been a competent and visible public official and because Dart never gave voters a reason to oust her.

The news media are playing up the fact that Topinka ran a "non-ideological" campaign, meaning that she didn't talk like a conservative and that she appealed for black and Hispanic votes, and many analysts have concluded that she won for those reasons.

To be sure, Topinka got more votes in the black wards and townships than Jim Ryan did. In the 20 Chicago black-majority wards, Ryan had 18,519 votes (6.5 percent), to Topinka's 41,737 (14.9 percent); that's a difference of 23,218 votes. In the five suburban black-majority townships, Ryan had 50,787 votes to Topinka's 68,553, and in Chicago's eight Hispanic-majority wards, Ryan had 10,514 votes to Topinka's 15,900.

Topinka amassed 1,087,716 votes in the Collar Counties and Downstate, almost 400,000 more than Jim Ryan did, and she ran about 140,000 votes ahead of Ryan in Cook County. Dart was largely unknown, and he was not pushed hard by Democratic committeemen or county chairmen, enabling Topinka to run well where Republicans are supposed to run well and to run slightly better than Republicans usually do in Cook County. Topinka's alleged appeal to minorities played virtually no part in her victory . . . but it improves her image as a Republican "who can appeal" to Democrats when she runs for governor in 2006.

Fact Number Three: Blagojevich got 548,664 votes in Chicago, of which a total of 51,611 came from the eight Hispanic-majority wards. He won those wards with 83.1 percent of the vote, but the votes from those ward accounted for less than 10 percent of his city vote. Even when factoring in the 6,874 votes that Blaogjevich got in Cicero, Hispanics accounted for just over 3 percent of the total Blagojevich vote. That not just anemic; it borders on the irrelevant. As shown in the adjoining vote chart, Blagojevich got almost as many votes in four Northwest Side wards as he did in eight Hispanic wards.

Gutierrez may be "King of the Mountain" in Hispanic politics, but his mountain is not much bigger than a molehill.

Fact Number Four: A flock of Democrats are already eyeing Fitzgerald's seat, reportedly including Moseley-Braun, Hynes, state Senator Barack Obama, wealthy businessman Blair Hull and former Chicago schools chief executive officer Gery Chico. But a 2002 Democratic statewide sweep doesn't necessarily mean another one in 2004. After all, the Ryans will be history, Blagojevich, as governor, will have made some tough decisions, Bush, who lost Illinois by 569,605 votes to Al Gore in 2000, is much more popular, and Bill Daley, whose management of the Gore motivated Mayor Rich Daley to push hard for Gore, likely won't return to manage Gore's campaign.

And remember -- Democrat Dick Durbin won his Senate seat in 1996 following the 1994 Republican statewide sweep. Predictions of doom for Fitzgerald are woefully premature.