 Ahead of the Illinois Primary, Goldwater traveled to Chicago and announced that he would change the campaign's media policy to avoid overexposure to the press, which he believed was reporting negatively on his campaign. He won the Illinois primary with 64 percent of the vote and gained most of the state's 48 delegates, but the victory was overshadowed by the 25 percent performance by long-shot candidate Margaret Smith. Goldwater's total was lower than the 80 percent that was expected. However, the result showed that Goldwater could win in a populous northern state, though a survey of newspaper publishers predicted that most of the Goldwater delegates would end up switching to the still-undecided Nixon. Goldwater remained confident that he would win the nomination, but continued to feel that overcoming Nixon would be his "last hurdle".
