During September, Donovan and the Democrats intensified their campaign in both liberal and anti-Prohibition Chicago and “dry” downstate Illinois. Smith would give his final campaign speech in Chicago on October 17. After the nominations were finalized, some critics felt Smith might have a chance of carrying electoral-vote-rich Illinois due to opposition to Hoover in the Farm Belt; however by the end of June Hoover asserted that the farm vote was safe after Lowden's supporters decided to aid the GOP nominee. At the end of the summer, the state was confused and few trends were apparent in early polling, with Republicans in metropolitan Chicago quarreling bitterly. However, by the end of September it was clear that religion was the paramount issue in the campaign and that it was driving Chicago toward Smith and the rest of the state toward Hoover. Despite earlier doubts, the earliest poll showed Hoover carrying Illinois by a two-to-one majority; however, increased registration in Cook County made the early "Literary Digest" polls seem dubious, and Hoover was winning only by five-to-three in the next poll in the second week of October, and only by twelve percentage points in the third week – at a time when Hoover was leading in 42 of 48 states. As things turned out, this last poll proved accurate, with Hoover carrying Illinois by a 14-point margin, which was nonetheless a major decline upon the two preceding elections and the first time Illinois had voted more Democratic than the nation at-large since Stephen A. Douglas in 1860. Smith did make major gains in heavily Catholic Chicago – despite reservations from the city's large Polish-American population about his Irish and Tammany background – but he failed to carry Cook County despite doubling Davis’ 1924 vote share. In the most heavily anti-Catholic areas – Scandinavian Rockford and Ozark Bible Belt-influenced Southern Illinois – the GOP vote held firm or rose and this was enough to ensure Smith had no chance of carrying the state.