“but in this case the nomination will be so contested”
We’ll see. The money markets predict Bernie will win every primary except Alabama. I want to see the democrats try to take the nomination from him.
You have to look at the rules of the primaries.
The Democrats eliminated all winner take all primaries.
So even if Bernie were to win all of them, he still would not have 50% of the delegates unless he won all of them by large margins (like he had in Nevada).
In many southern states Bernie will do well to barely win and get a third of the delegates. My guess is that he will only get a quarter of the delegates in the south.
He should exceed the 50% margin in states like CA, TX, WA, OR.
My prediction is he will have somewhere between 40 and 45% of the delegates by convention time, with no-one else above 20%.
The campaign trail is mighty rigorous and he's already had one heart attack, don'tcha know.