Sanders can suspend his campaign and still be on the ballot in these states. A vote is a vote, it doesn't matter whether he's still campaigning or not.
It's just a fake excuse. He's tricking people into thinking his motivations for running are merely selfishly policy-based. His actual motivation for running is hoping for a miracle as his rabid base throws the kitchen sink at Joe Biden and, barring that, being able to use the rabidity of his base as a blackmail chip when it's time to strong-arm the party into putting M4A in the platform.
The party is never going to want to deal with his base again after this. Almost everyone else understood the best time to negotiate for the best possible seat at the table is after you recognize you have no path, but before the public does. You still have something to offer. Staying in the race and losing by larger and larger margins doesn’t help anybody. It hurts Biden because the Bernie Bro’s will continue to cook up scandal after scandal and it hurts the progressive cause because nobody takes them seriously when they start losing by 2 to 1 margins in a two person race.
