Washington Post-Opinion: When the field thins, Biden still may be on top

The presumption that it is only a matter of time before Biden collapses may rest on nothing more than wishful thinking. The data suggest he has a broad base of support.

The RealClearPolitics average shows Biden (34.7) has twice the support that a sinking Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) (17.7) commands. The old CW for Sanders was that he was a front-runner; the new CW is that he’s past his prime. “Bernie Sanders seems to be getting squeezed from two sides,” Chuck Todd explained on Meet the Press. “Joe Biden’s got in, his numbers grew. Bernie Sanders’ got lower. . . . [T]he less you were paying attention the more likely you were a Bernie Sanders supporter. The point being Biden took a bunch of soft supporters.”

With Sanders declining, he risks falling into a distant second with a tightlypacked group of contenders. In the RCP average, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) draws close to 10 points, Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) gets 8 percent and South Bend, Ind, Mayor Pete Buttigieg is at 6.2 — with everyone else below 4 percent. The quartet not only carves up the not-Biden vote, but may work to keep them all of them below the 15 percent threshold, the minimum for winning delegates.

However, even if one or more of this group falters, there is no guarantee someone else can consolidate the not-Biden vote. The Republican Echelon Poll, for example, found that in one-on-one match ups, Biden wins going away against Sanders (61/25), Harris (63/20), Buttigieg (65/17) and Warren (66/19). This is a single poll, a Republican one at that, but at this stage no single candidate seems capable of matching Biden’s appeal.