There’s another election happening today, over on the other side of the aisle – but it’s a much less-interesting one, in my opinion. Bernie Sanders has successfully demonstrated the lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton among young voters, very-liberal voters, and working-class white voters. The last is going to be a problem for Democrats in a Clinton-Trump contest. The second shouldn’t be a problem at all. The first . . . is an interesting question, since both Clinton and Trump appeal more to older voters than to young ones.

But demonstrating Clinton’s vulnerabilities isn’t the same as beating her, and Sanders is not getting close to the numbers he needs to have a shot at winning the nomination. And he’s going to get further away today. He’s going to lose Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia by decisive margins. Those mostly aren’t surprises given Sanders’s weakness among non-white, and especially black, voters, coupled with Clinton’s Arkansas “roots,” and if Sanders were putting up New Hampshire-like numbers among white voters, he’d still have a very real shot. But he’s not. Based on recent polls, he’d be expected to lose Massachusetts as well – a state he needs to win by a large margin to be on-track to seriously contesting the nomination. He’ll win virtually every vote in Vermont, but that won’t matter – he’s a favorite son there, and almost no delegates are at stake.

That leaves Oklahoma, where recent polls show a close race, Minnesota, where Clinton was dominant in January but where there has been no recent polling, and Colorado, which hasn’t been polled since last year. Sanders needs to win all three, and by comfortable margins, to really be in the game, both in terms of the race for delegates and the ability to shape the media narrative. I don’t think it’ll happen. Colorado is a closed caucus – and Sanders doesn’t do as well among regular Democrats as he does among left-leaning independents. And, whether fairly or not, I think the losses in Nevada and South Carolina have cut into the faith of Sanders voters that he’s got a real shot, and will hurt him even in states where the demographics favor him.

Sanders might pull off a win in one or more of his winnable trio, or even in all three. But I don’t expect him to win by the margins necessary to change the narrative or to presage real contests down the line. Instead, after racking up a huge delegate lead today, I expect the polls to move Clinton’s way in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Florida, all states where she leads by a hefty margin in recent polling already. Barring a Clinton indictment or some other dramatic event from outside the campaign, I expect Sanders to have been reduced to a protest candidacy by March 15th.