Democratic Strategist urges quick Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren win

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17. Here's a link to the original Dec.19 GQ article by Jentleson:

https://www.gq.com/story/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-winning-2020

If you look at the moderates and progressives as blocs, they’re within a few points of each other straight down the line, with each side trading leads nationally, in the early states and in the massive group of states that votes on March 3rd, aka Super Tuesday. It’s easy to see how these blocs will polarize, but polarization is not inevitable. To the contrary, a range of reliable data suggests that polarization is likely only if a moderate wins early states—and that by contrast, Democratic voters will quickly rally behind a progressive.

Second-choice support gives us an idea of where voters will flow as the field winnows, and it shows that all roads lead to the progressives. According to the measures of second-choice support tracked by the Economist and Morning Consult, Warren and Bernie are the second choice of each other’s supporters—predictably. But they’re also the second choice of Biden and Buttigieg’s supporters. So if Warren or Sanders win in early states, they’re poised to easily attract the supporters of the moderates, quickly unifying the party. But if a moderate wins early primaries and one of the progressives fades, most of the losing progressive’s supporters are likely to go to the other progressive, not the moderate—leading to a polarized and potentially very long primary.