I agree. Can't believe Biden is going to be the opposition - what on earth happened to see him jump in the ratings so quickly? There was part of me wondering if it was Rep's voting to choose a weaker candidate. Trump will tear him apart in debates. I really can't see Trump losing to him.
In essence
1. Bernie Sanders’ strategy was to guarantee 30-40% of the vote in each state because the field was crowded-he does this by focussing on the under 45 and Hispanic vote
2. This worked well for the first 3 states and the media looked resigned to him winning with Biden in 4th. Then Biden won the fourth state on the back of enormous elderly African American support (despite him vouching for segregation in the past).
3. Off the back of that the Democratic establishment decided to coalesce around Biden and persuaded all of the other centrist candidates to drop out and endorse Biden ahead of March 3rd when a huge number of contests were held. The other progressive candidate was persuaded to stay in. Keep in mind that Biden had zero campaign presence in these states and had done little or no adverts
4. March 3rd saw Biden mop the floor with the support gained from all the other centrist candidates. Bernie got his 30-40% in a lot of places but got overwhelmed by the high boomer turnout for Biden. The progressive candidate Warren appears to have helped Biden win a few of the north eastern states too. She then drops out making it a two horse race
5. Bernie spends a week calling Biden his friend and saying that he could beat Trump as well. He proceeds to lose heavily on March 10th and the race is basically over though notably he still gets that solid 35% from the under 45s.
It’s a combination of the Democratic higher ups and poor strategy from Bernie, but if there hadn’t been that forced coalescing near March 3rd it is very likely he would have won