This is the way the Bernie Sanders 2020 candidacy ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.

The Vermont senator announced Wednesday that he is ending his second run at the White House, the inevitable outcome to a campaign that ran out of steam a long time ago.

"I wanted to just let everyone know that … I will be publicly announcing the suspension of our campaign,” Sanders said in a phone call with campaign aides. “Needless to say, this is a very difficult and painful decision for me. … There is no alternative."

So, what happened?

This was supposed to be the senator’s time. After his strong showing in the 2016 Democratic primary, it seemed almost inevitable that Sanders would become the Democratic nominee for president. After Sanders’s victories in New Hampshire and Nevada this year, it seemed a certainty that he would go on to run against President Trump in the fall. Yet the senator’s campaign fell apart almost immediately after former Vice President Joe Biden won the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29.

So, again, what happened?

The truth of the matter, it seems, is that Sanders was never that strong of a candidate. Failed two-time presidential candidate Hillary Clinton just made him look like one. In retrospect, it appears that Democratic primary voters flocked to Sanders three years ago not because he is an especially exciting and promising candidate, but because he is not Hillary Clinton.

Consider the following.

By March 17 of this year, which is the last time we got results from a Democratic primary, Sanders had retaken several of the states he won in 2016, including New Hampshire, Colorado, Vermont, Utah, and North Dakota. Sanders also won three territories that he lost in 2016 to Clinton, including Nevada, California, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

But the gains that the senator enjoyed this time around pale in comparison to the losses he incurred.

In 2016, Sanders won Maine, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Idaho, Michigan, and Washington. He lost every single one of these states in 2020 to Biden. Nevada, California, and the Northern Mariana Islands represent the only areas where Sanders built on the success of 2016.

As if this were not bad enough, consider also that the senator hemorrhaged states to a candidate who has comparatively little ground organization and who has also spent comparatively little cash on advertising. Biden did not even campaign in Arkansas, whereas Sanders did. The former vice president easily won Arkansas on Super Tuesday. Virginia is a similar story. If Democratic primary voters are flocking to a candidate who is not even trying, after having previously flocked to Sanders, what does this say about Clinton?

Sanders’s defeat in the 2020 Democratic primary was not even close. Biden started to rack up the delegate wins after his victory in South Carolina, and it has all been downhill for the Vermont lawmaker ever since. For weeks, the question has not been “if” Sanders would end his campaign, but “when.”

There is a lesson here: The Vermont senator’s 2020 flame-out suggests he did not perform well in the previous Democratic primary because he is an especially strong candidate or because there is a genuine groundswell of support in the United States for his political revolution.

Sanders did well in 2016 because Hillary Clinton was that poor of a candidate.