The Paul Simon Public Policy Institute commissioned a poll of 1,000 registered voters to handicap Illinois' gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. In the first contest, GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady holds a nine point lead over Gov. Pat Quinn, with greater than 22 percent of those surveyed still undecided:

Bill Brady (R): 38%
Pat Quinn (D): 30%
Scott Lee Cohen (I): 6%
Rich Whitney (G): 2%
Lex Green (L): 2%

In the race for President Obama's former U.S. Senate seat, the poll found registered voters in a deadlock between U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk and State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias. Nearly as many respondents were undecided (21 percent) as were in the governor's race:

Mark Kirk (R): 37%
Alexi Giannoulias (D): 37%
LeAlan Jones (G): 3%
Mike Labno (L): 2%

Rasmussen also released a new poll on the Senate race but did not include Labno as a possible choice. According to their results, Giannoulias holds a tiny edge. Here are the topline results from the survey (with the results of the four previous Rasmussen polls in parentheses):

Giannoulias: 44% (41%, 37%, 42%, 40%)
Kirk: 43% (44%, 41%, 40%, 40%)

The Simon polls did not include "leaners," or the voters who have not made a final decision about who they are voting for but are asked to choose which candidate they prefer. That helps explain the high number of undecideds. You can click here (PDF) for the cross tabs, and here is a link to TPM's PollTrackers for both the governor's race and the Senate race.