Three days from the Illinois Primary and Mitt Romney holds about a 7 point lead over Rick Santorum. Based on the way the last several states have turned out, I am very skeptical that he is actually ahead by that much. Last week, Rick Santorum had significant deficits in both Alabama & Mississippi in polling, yet still managed to win both states. Additionally, Rasmussen has been a homer for Mitt Romney in most states, generally overstating his actual results in many states so far, particularly states with socially conservative bases. There could be a few reasons for this.
One is that the enthusiasm gap between Mitt Romney's supporters and Rick Santorum's supporters creates essentially an overpolling for Romney and an underpolling on Santorum's side. It could also be that the likely voter models that are used are insufficiently capturing the actual electorate vs. perceived voters. Either way, the math in many cases has not added up during this primary season.
Illinois is an interesting state, in that the electorate is very different dependin where you are in the state. In and around the Chicagoland area, Republicans tend to be fiscally conservative and socially moderate, while southern Illinois is much more socially conserative with a large evangelical Christian base in the party.
Over the next few days, I would expet a couple more polls as the major media markets of Chicago & St. Louis will likely do some polling this weekend. I would also expect some of the other national pollsters to take a shot here.
