It’s lonely being a Republican in Evanston.

“We’re like an anomaly,” Evanston resident Erin Spiess said.

The area’s voting patterns back her up. Jan Schakowsky, theDemocratic congresswoman from Illinois’ 9th congressional district,which includes Evanston, has won with more than 70 percent of thevote since she first was elected in 1998.

This year, she ran unopposed until Republican committeemen metover the summer to select Kurt Eckhardt to challenge her. Nocandidates entered last spring’s Republican primary. And Evanstonconsistently has supported the Democratic presidential nominee formore than 20 years.

The Evanston Republican Organization operates out of a smallstorefront at 1110 Davis St. In the front windows are signs for theBush-Cheney campaign as well as other local Republican candidates.Only a couple blocks east lie a set of larger, adjacent offices forSchakowsky, state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, state Rep. Julie Hamos andCook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin — all Democrats.

Today the Democrats’ dominance in Evanston is overwhelming.

In Spiess’s neighborhood, Democrats so outnumber theirRepublican counterparts that Spiess said she usually is reluctantto tell friends and neighbors her party affiliation for fear ofbeing ostracized.

“Literally, (the neighbors) wouldn’t let their kids come over toplay” if they knew she was a Republican, Spiess said.

But it wasn’t always so. John Evans, better known as Evanston’snamesake and one of Northwestern’s founders, also founded theIllinois Republican Party. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wasa Republican congressman from Illinois’ 13th district in the 1960s,when that district included Evanston along with much of northernCook County. Rumsfeld served from 1963 until he resigned in 1969 toserve in the Nixon administration.

Evanston remained a Republican stronghold until 1964, when itvoted Democratic for the first time to narrowly support PresidentLyndon Johnson’s re-election. Republicans remained competitive inthe 1960s and 1970s, but by the ’80s Evanston was a solid liberalbastion, with Democrats sweeping the major citywide races.

No Republican has represented Evanston in the House ofRepresentatives since Evanston became part of the 9th district in1982.

The Evanston Republican Organization does what it can to promotelocal candidates and the Grand Ole Party in general.

It mails out about 2,000 copies of its newsletter, sells lawnsigns and bumper stickers out of its office and sends volunteers tomarch with a large flag in Evanston’s July Fourth parade.

“We support our candidates to our very best ability,” said EllenSchrodt, Evanston’s Republican committeeman since 1993. “We try toinform the voters about their choices.”

But Schrodt admitted that money is tight for Evanston’sRepublicans. For example, the organization’s office still usesdial-up Internet access.

“Having no officeholders is a distinct disadvantage,” Schrodtsaid. “The Democrats have all these people in office.”

And that means the Democrats get more money and more support,she added.

It’s not easy to lead a party that faces such long odds inelections.

“It’s discouraging because you have trouble getting candidates,”Schrodt said. “The candidate knows he’s not going to win, so he mayor may not be a serious campaigner.”

But Schrodt couldn’t be more serious about her work.

She said she inherited her Republican loyalties from her fatherand grandfather and has been active in Republican causes wherevershe has lived, from her hometown of Rockport, Ind., toIndianapolis, Baton Rouge, La., and the Washington, D.C., area.

“I firmly believe that the country has to have two strongparties — maybe viable is the better word — in order to makedemocracy work,” she said.

Ultimately, her fight is about more than political theory.

Said Schrodt: “I’m trying to save the country for mygrandchildren.”

Reach Michael Beder at [email protected].