Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report tells us (subscription required):

As expected, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation seized control Friday of Broadway Bank, the community bank owned by the family of Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias. Giannoulias worked as the bank’s chief loan officer from 2002 until 2006 when he was elected state Treasurer.

The bank’s financial problems and its business relationships with people associated with corruption and organized crime have dogged Giannoulias’ campaign since early February when he became the nominee. Now that Broadway has failed — a failure that will cost the FDIC an estimated $394 million — its impact on Giannoulias’ campaign is enormous, and it is entirely possible that the fallout could force him from the race. …

Given recent events, it’s impossible to justify keeping the race in the Toss Up column. While current circumstances would seem to lend themselves to a rating of Likely Republican, we know that it’s entirely possible that we could well be dealt a different hand — and a very different race — a month or two from now. As such, the race moves to the Lean Republican column.

You can bet Illinois Democrats will be combing the state election laws. Can they dump Giannoulias? What if he refuses to leave the race? Could they find a viable replacement? All these questions swirl because Illinois Democrats were apparently in a world of their own when they elected him as their nominee. It’s not as if his ties to Tony Rezko and Illinois mobsters were not known. It’s not as if they didn’t know of his bank’s financial shakiness. But they plunged ahead, seemingly convinced that any Democrat could win in Illinois. Well, not this year and not in a year when the entire Democratic leadership is banking on populist anger against banks to turn out their base. It is, to put it mildly, a bad case of message confusion.