Democrats are failing to keep up with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., because they are all splitting the pie of the non-progressive majority in the party, according to former candidate Andrew Yang.
"Someone needs to pull an Andrew Yang and be like, 'I've done the math, I'm not going to win,'" Yang told CNN.
Yang warned of a contested Democratic National Convention where Sanders leads but does not have enough delegates, forcing super delegates – who likely do not back Sanders' progressive platform, according to Yang – to decide among the remaining Democratic candidates.
"The problem for Bernie is that he's unlikely to get an outright majority heading into the convention, which is going to set the stage for the superdelegates to emerge," Yang, who ended his campaign after a poor showing in New Hampshire. "And then you're looking at a contested convention, which is also the dream scenario for non-Bernie candidates."
Yang added, "it's hard to drop out, but in some cases it's hard to keep going." Once Democrats begin to drop out, perhaps the field can catch up to Sanders.
"The rest of the field needs to consolidate, ideally, and each candidate wants to be the last person standing to absorb the non-Bernie energy."