As I go through my exit polls, one thing I’m noticing is that while there is some evidence of the “lanes” that many pundits focus on in voters’ second choices, it’s substantially more limited than you might think. For instance, 29 percent of Pete Buttigieg’s supporters say their second choice is Amy Klobuchar and another 18 percent say it’s Joe Biden, which is to be expected if the three of them occupy a more center-left lane. But 26 percent of Buttigieg supporters also say Sanders is their second choice, which seems to defy the logic of clear lanes. National surveys reinforce this.
Sometimes, the lanes and divisions that seem straightforward to pundits are much murkier in practice. And that suggests that you shouldn’t just add the totals of candidates who are in the same lane on the assumption that all the supporters of one will flock to the other.