Early primary states never really give a good indication of what to expect down the line.

Besides who cares if he talked with the other candidates and made deals? That's how politics works. Bernie could have talked to the other candidates and made deals too, it's all a part of the process and always has been. I'm not saying Biden did, we'll all probably never know. I think what's more realistic is the other moderates all performed extremely poorly at all steps so they just dropped out instead of dragging things on.

Bernie's campaign manager admitted they really misfired here in 2020. They expected Bernie to never peak above 35% of the vote and hoped that the moderates split the rest of the vote going into the convention.