What a night it was for voters in Illinois. The state featured some of the closest races in this 2010 election. As election results come in, clarity has not, at least for the Governor’s race in Illinois.

First we will start with the Senate seat. The race between Republican candidate Mark Kirk, and Democratic Candidate Alexi Giannoulias was expected to be rather tight, however, pre-election polls indicated that Kirk was ahead by about 2%. After 93% of all votes in Illinois have been counted, Kirk is leading the race 48% to 46% over Giannoulias, and is projected to win the seat for the Republicans. Illinois was one of the toss up states that Republicans had hoped to walk away with, and barring a miraculous turn around, it looks like they have done just that.

The governor’s race in Illinois is much too close to call, on the other hand. Pat Quinn and Bill Brady are in a virtual tie at 46% of the vote each. Quinn has the slight edge with 1,694,196 of the votes, compared to Brady’s 1,685,847, but with 7% of the precincts yet to report this morning, this is still anyone’s election. Pre-election polls had actually suggested that Brady had the slight edge over the Democratic incumbent, Quinn, by approximately 5%, so this is a bit of a surprise for Democrats.