The biggest obstacle to a moderate candidate edging out Sanders is not the opinions of Democratic voters, more than two-thirds of whom have rejected him in the two nominating contests held so far, but his opponents themselves. There are too many of them. If the vote shares of Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Warren, who have all denounced Sanders as either too radical, a sexist, or both, were combined, he would lose by a wide margin. Instead the moderate vote is spread thin across five campaigns — and likely to be subdivided even further when Michael Bloomberg begins to appear on ballots. The fact that delegates are awarded to the winner of Democratic primaries and caucuses on a proportional rather than a winner-take-all basis makes the math for taking Sanders out even more difficult. Even in states in which he is not expected to win he is likely to place no lower than second. This could be enough to win if voters in states whose electorates as varied as those in South Carolina, Texas, and Indiana cannot make up their minds about which non-Sanders candidate is the most viable.

In other words, beating Bernie will require all but one of these people to drop out, and soon. So far as I am aware, not even the machinations of the DNC are sinister enough to remove the names of unhelpful has-been moderates from ballots in order to make room for Buttigieg or Klobuchar or whomever they decide in March to coalesce around. No one will be able to make it happen except the candidates themselves. And while the pressure collectively will be intense, individually speaking all of these people will no doubt find it easy to justify remaining in the race as long as they have the ability to raise funds.