On Tues­day, mil­lions of vot­ers in four­teen states went to the polls in the most impor­tant day of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial primary.

Although results are still com­ing in, for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden has emerged as the clear vic­tor, win­ning nine states, expand­ing his coali­tion of vot­ers, and mak­ing the most dra­mat­ic elec­toral come­back in decades.

At the start of last week, Biden’s cam­paign appeared to be on the verge of col­lapse; in the after­math of ter­ri­ble results from Iowa, New Hamp­shire, and Neva­da, Biden was fac­ing grave doubts about the via­bil­i­ty of his candidacy.

Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden was the big Super Tues­day winner.

How­ev­er, after a con­vinc­ing vic­to­ry in South Car­oli­na on Sat­ur­day, Biden began a remark­able surge. With­in hours of his win, two of his oppo­nents – Sen­a­tor Amy Klobuchar and May­or Pete Buttigieg – dropped out of the race and endorsed him. This news came amidst a flood of endorse­ments from influ­en­tial Demo­c­ra­t­ic fig­ures across the coun­try, and togeth­er con­sti­tut­ed a clear sign that many in the par­ty had final­ly decid­ed to unite behind Barack Obama’s gov­ern­ing partner.

The sud­den move­ment to coa­lesce around Biden was prompt­ed in part by the suc­cess of Bernie Sanders in the ear­li­er nom­i­nat­ing contest.

The U.S. Sen­a­tor from Ver­mont emerged as the clear frontrun­ner in late Feb­ru­ary, after win­ning the pop­u­lar vote in Iowa, the New Hamp­shire pri­ma­ry and the Neva­da cau­cus­es, and is per­ceived by many in Demo­c­ra­t­ic cir­cles to be a risky choice for the nom­i­na­tion — in part because Sanders does­n’t even iden­ti­fy as a Demo­c­rat and has not iden­ti­fied strate­gies for enact­ing his ideas.

It took a while for the forces with­in the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty that don’t want Sanders to coa­lesce behind Biden, but Sanders’ repeat­ed vic­to­ry forced their hand, as it became clear that Sanders had the poten­tial to win all fifty states.

The long-expec­t­ed con­sol­i­da­tion of the par­tial­ly pro­gres­sive wing of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in sup­port of a cred­i­ble alter­na­tive to Sanders has seri­ous­ly jeop­ar­dized his prospects of win­ning the nomination.

Biden was pre­dict­ed to do well in more con­ser­v­a­tive regions of the coun­try like the South and Mid­west, but endorse­ments from his for­mer rivals Beto O’Rourke and Amy Klobuchar pushed him to unex­pect­ed wins in Texas and Minnesota.

Biden even pulled off a shock win in Mass­a­chu­setts, despite Sanders’ fer­vent cam­paign­ing in the state. His win in the Bay State showed that he has added lib­er­al, col­lege-edu­­cat­ed white vot­ers to his base of support.

How­ev­er, Sanders’ own coali­tion of sup­port­ers – Lati­nos, young peo­ple, and lib­er­als – helped him pre­vail in the vital­ly impor­tant Moun­tain West.

As well as his home state of Ver­mont, Sanders won in Utah, Col­orado, and – most impor­tant­ly – Cal­i­for­nia, the biggest prize of the night.

Sen­a­tor Bernie Sanders speaks at the Taco­ma Dome on Pres­i­dents Day 2020 (Pho­to: Ren­nie Sawade/NPI)

The results of Super Tues­day leave no room for doubt that the Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry is now a two-horse race between Biden and Sanders.

The day’s results for the oth­er remain­ing can­di­dates were dismal.

For­mer May­or Michael Bloomberg had lit­er­al­ly staked hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars on Super Tues­day and has noth­ing to show for it (it turns out that it is eas­i­er to buy politi­cians than it is to buy elections).

Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren – who was briefly con­sid­ered the Demo­c­ra­t­ic fron­trun­ner back in the autumn – did not even win her home state of Massachusetts.

These can­di­dates – espe­cial­ly War­ren – will now face rapid­ly increas­ing pres­sure to drop out of the race in favor of one of the two fron­trun­ners. Michael Bloomberg has already dropped his White House bid and has pledged to sup­port Biden.

The field now con­sists of two can­di­dates, who are stark­ly dif­fer­ent from one anoth­er. The 2016 nom­i­nat­ing con­test – which was expect­ed ini­tial­ly by many pun­dits to be a cake­walk for Hillary Clin­ton – turned into a bit­ter brawl between her and Sanders’ under­dog cam­paign, with Clin­ton even­tu­al­ly com­ing out on top thanks to her sup­port in key regions like the South.

Clin­ton was also the estab­lish­men­t’s choice in 2008, but was unex­pect­ed­ly beat­en by Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Barack Oba­ma, who gal­va­nized a pro­gres­sive grass­roots move­ment much like the one Bernie Sanders is try­ing to build now.

The Super Tues­day results have remind­ed us that pol­i­tics can be unpre­dictable. Next Tues­day, we’ll have more results that will fur­ther illu­mi­nate the tra­jec­to­ry of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, includ­ing data from two Pacif­ic North­west states: Wash­ing­ton and Ida­ho. Both are hold­ing pres­i­den­tial pri­maries on March 10th.