President Obama has not yet spoken with Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, now the Democratic nominee seeking the president's former Senate seat. A spokesman for the Giannoulias camp says that the White House did send its congratulations last night via a text message, and promised that the commander in chief would be calling today. A White House spokesman confirms that Obama will likely call Giannoulias today.

Of course, Giannoulias was not the Chicago-heavy administration's preference to be the Senate nominee. Publicly they remained neutral, but state Attorney General Lisa Madigan was courted by administration officials. Here's what Robert Gibbs had to say last June:

"The president has a very long relationship with the attorney general dating back to their time in the state Senate, and has enormous respect for what she accomplished there and as attorney general. I think she'd be a terrific candidate. But we're not going to get involved in picking that candidate."