Illinois Primary Update

Cognitive dissonance in polling.   ARG and PPP both have Romney up about 15 points in Illinois.   But both took those polls over the weekend, which happened to be (a) St. Patrick's Day; (b) the first weekend of the NCAA tournament; and (c) the most beautiful weekend in March I've ever seen in the upper Midwest.   So I tend to think that the demographic skew toward people who want to talk to pollsters on the phone over that particular weekend is large.    I don't trust them.

Meanwhile, something interesting is happening in the Gallup national tracking poll:

I get the impression that things are much closer than people think between Romney and Santorum in Illinois, and that the narrative after tonight will be another close Romney win, more talk about why he can't close the deal, and Santorum crowing about how he comes this close while being outspent.

By the way, from a GOP perspective, the more the narrative becomes Romney is buying the election by outspending his rivals, the worse it is for November.