Does Sanders have a real shot at this?

It's clear that the early primary states generally work in favor of the activists with the most hard line ground support, over those candidates who have a more broad appeal to the larger electorate in general. It's also clear that whoever comes out of those early states with wins and momentum will clearly have an advantage moving forward. In fact the winner of Iowa in the past six contested Democratic primary battles have gone on to win the nomination.

Raised $34 million last quarter

Right now Joe Biden is sitting in third place in both Iowa and New Hampshire polling. Given the huge reliance on hard core support, as well as the manner in which Iowa is done (caucus), those polls may actually be overstating Biden's chances. As it stands, Pete Buttigieg holds an advantage in Iowa, while Sanders holds one in New Hampshire. If those two split the first two states, then that could cause some real problems for Joe Biden and his momentum moving forward. Given he isn't raising the same sort of money as Sanders is raising, the idea that Biden will have some sort of big advantage in later states may be wishful thinking on the part of Biden fans.

Moreover, the DNC has to almost bend over backwards to make sure that they do not pull the same sort of antics that they pulled in 2016 with their obvious favoritism of Clinton over Sanders. If they pull something similar in 2020, you would have an all out revolt from the far socialist left who supports Sanders, Warren, the Squad, etc... So Biden shouldn't expect any help from the DNC.

So with Warren struggling and Bernie raising a ton of cash, one gets a sense that you could see some real movement within the far left to rally around Sanders. When you add the two coalitions up, you will note that there is much more support for the Sanders Warren way of thinking than there is for the Biden Klobuchar type of thinking. Nobody knows (at this point) where the Bloomberg Steyer supports will go once their candidates sink.

What I see as a very real probability is a contested convention where Sanders actually has the most delegates (but not a majority). If the DNC were to swoop in and push the race to Biden (or someone new) you could witness a huge percentage of Bernie supporters staying home, or even supporting a third Party (Would Sanders run as an independent).

All I know is that the betting odds have been moving up for Sanders, and I think it's time to start taking a real hard serious look at the idea that could very well be the nominee.