UPDATE:
As expected Kirk and Giannoulias will face off for the Senate.
But the Governor’s race is interesting.
Right now on the Democratic side Quinn holds a lead over Hynes of about 6,500 votes out of 900,000 cast. This works out to about 0.6% of the vote. There are still around 25-50k votes to count so this race is up in the air.
The GOP side is even closer. Brady leads Dillard by about 550 votes out of about 750,000 cast and they still have about 30-40k left to count.
So we may not know the outcomes for some time, especially on the GOP side
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Tonight they are holding primaries in Illinois, picking candidates for a number of offices including Governor and Senator.
If you get WGN on your cable/satellite/etc they are showing election special.
If not you can get results here
In the race for Governor on the Democratic side incumbent Pat Quinn (who succeeded Governor Soprano) has a slight lead over State Comptroller Dan Hynes. I’ll welcome input from any readers from the state but it looks like Hynes has most of his support from the Chicago machine (though many African Americans seem to back Quinn.)
On the GOP side it’s a close 4 way race between former state chair Andy McKenna (currently in the lead), State Senator Kirk Dillard (2nd), State Senator Bill Brady (3rd) and former state AG Jim Ryan (4th).
In the race for President Obama’s old Senate Seat the GOP winner is moderate congressman Mark Kirk is the easy winner. On the Democratic side State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias appears to have won over former Chicago City Inspector David Hoffman with Urban League President Cheryle Jackson in 3rd. However that race is still tight.
In both contests early polls show the Democrats with a lead but in the Senate contest in particular many experts say the GOP has a strong chance to win.