Joe Biden was expected to win the South Carolina primary, but it is now apparent that nobody expected him to win quite this much. It appears that the primary is slowly turning into a showdown between Biden and Bernie. 

Especially now that the rest of the moderate wing of the democratic party is moving very fast to consolidate behind Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Steyer have dropped out immediately after the results from the South Carolina primary were announced, and are now expected to endorse Biden.

Biden secured his victory by tapping into the strong market in South Carolina for “similar to Obama,” and Bernie came in second with a significantly smaller but also strong demand for his “youth-fuelled revolution.”

Whether or not the Biden campaign will keep up the momentum from South Carolina onto the Super Tuesday states remains to be seen because this is Biden’s first victory, which is why it would be over the top to call Sanders a “loser” in this outcome. In essence, he’s still the frontrunner in delegates and is leading the national polls, and is generally in good shape.

The Super Tuesday contests will put about a third of the delegates to the national convention up for grabs. It could decide not just the trajectory of this primary- A string of victories for Sanders in states like California, Texas, and Minnesota could potentially fundamentally alter the identity of a party he has sought to remake according to his own beliefs.

But if Biden can pull together voters, now that he has a bunch of new donors and renewed faith in his campaign, especially amongst suburban moderates, then Sanders’ position would be dramatically weakened — and his campaign’s early promise will be put in doubt.