i had three likely outcomes:

1) biden gets out the base.

2) sanders works up the fringes

3) buttigieg emerges as consensus

1 & 3 were mutually exclusive. 3 turned out to be the right one, and 2 happened too.

this is buttigieg's chance, and he'd better make the most of it because it is indeed obvious that he doesn't have the appeal to southern blacks that barack obama did.

but, we may be seeing a break in the "obama coalition", a sort of chicago connection, between educated, northern whites and uneducated, southern blacks. sanders doesn't pull from either side of that, remember. but, that was always a shaky union.

if buttigieg can salvage that coalition, he will win. if he can't, if it factions and picks separate candidates, then sanders can come up the middle.

biden will have a hard time winning if he's lost northern, educated whites to some combination of buttigieg and warren, even if he sweeps the south.

and, it's time for klobuchar to go home to washington.