A resurgent Joe Biden scored victories from Texas to Massachusetts on Super Tuesday, revitalizing a presidential bid that was teetering on the edge of disaster just days earlier.
But his rival, Bernie Sanders, seized the biggest prize with a win in California that ensured he — and his embrace of democratic socialism — would drive the Democrats' nomination fight for the foreseeable future.
One talking point from the day was the Democratic Party's once-crowded presidential field suddenly transformed into a two-man contest.
The two Democrats, lifelong politicians with starkly different visions for America's future, were battling for delegates as 14 states and one US territory held a series of high-stakes elections that marked the most significant day of voting in the party's 2020 presidential nomination fight. The winner will take on US President Donald Trump in the November general election.
Bernie Sanders was projected to win the biggest prize on Super Tuesday, the state of California. Photo / AP
The other two high-profile candidates still in the shrinking Democratic field, New York billionaire Mike Bloomberg and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, were teetering on the edge of viability.
Warren finished an embarrassing third place in her home state, and Bloomberg planned to reassess his candidacy after spending more than a half billion dollars to score a single victory — in American Samoa.
"Joe Biden did not campaign in Massachusetts. I don't think he campaigned in Minnesota either. He's winning states that he didn't even attempt to win," Tapper said, a little incredulously.
His colleague Dana Bash added that Biden had also won Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma despite never campaigning in any of them.
Former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe – who has endorsed Biden – said he was stunned by the scale of his win in the state.
"I've been helping the party for a very long time. I have never in my life seen anything like what we're seeing tonight," he said.
"You've got to understand, a week ago, Joe Biden was dead. Then, the issue, could he win any states? Then he could win maybe some of the southern states.
"But the idea that we're sitting here tonight, he's won Minnesota, he's won Massachusetts, with no money! I cannot stress this point. No staff, really. No money.
"In Virginia, not a single television ad was purchased by the Biden campaign. Zero TV ads. Nothing.
"It's extraordinary, what's happened."
Political analyst Van Jones echoed McAuliffe's sentiments.
"We've seen, in a 72-hour period, Joe Biden go from being a joke to a juggernaut. That's what happened. And I've not seen anything like this, ever," Jones said.
"To come from this far back with no money, no machine, no organisation, just based on this idea that he can get it done. It's unbelievable."
The former vice president and the three-term senator spoke to each other from dueling victory speeches separated by 4,000 kilometers.
"People are talking about a revolution. We started a movement," Biden charged in Los Angeles, knocking one of Sanders' signature lines.
And without citing his surging rival by name, Sanders swiped at Biden from Burlington, Vermont.
"You cannot beat Trump with the same-old, same-old kind of politics," Sanders declared, ticking down a list of past policy differences with Biden on Social Security, trade and military force.
The balance of Super Tuesday's battlefield - with Biden winning at least eight states and Sanders four - raised questions about whether the Democratic primary contest would stretch all the way to the July convention or be decided much sooner. Biden's strong finish punctuated a dramatic turnaround in the span of just three days when he leveraged a blowout victory in South Carolina to score sweeping victories that transcended geography, class and race. And lest there be any doubt, he cemented his status as the standard-bearer for the Democrats' establishment wing.
The former vice president showed strength in the Northeast with a win in Massachusetts, won Minnesota in the upper Midwest and finished on top across the South in Virginia, Alabama, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas - in addition to Oklahoma.
Sanders opened the night as the undisputed Democratic front-runner and was in a position to claim an insurmountable delegate lead. And while he scored the night's biggest delegate-prize in California, he scored just three other decisive victories, winning his home state of Vermont, along with Utah and Colorado. Still, Sanders proved he could deliver in perhaps the greatest test of his decadeslong political career.
His success was built on a base of energized liberals, young people and Latinos. And his conclusive win in California marks a huge reversal in a state he lost four years ago.
Biden racked up his victories despite being dramatically outspent and out-staffed.
Moderate rival Bloomberg, for example, poured more than $19 million into television advertising in Virginia, while Biden spent less than $200,000.
Former presidential candidate Marianne Williamson has labelled moderate Democrats' consolidation behind Joe Biden "a coup".
She deleted the tweet shortly after posting it.
Marianne
So, what was she talking about? What happened yesterday?
Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar were competing with Biden and Sanders for the nomination until the aftermath of this week's South Carolina primary, which Biden won by a mile.
Both concluded they no longer had any path to the nomination, and dropped out of the race.
After doing so, they each endorsed Biden yesterday, saying he was the candidate best placed to beat Sanders and then, in the general election, Trump.
In other words, Buttigieg and Klobuchar did what Donald Trump's rivals for the Republican nomination failed to do four years ago – they concluded the only way to defeat Sanders was to stop fracturing moderate voters' support, and put their own ambition aside, throwing their weight behind one standard bearer.
Biden also got the endorsement of Beto O'Rourke, a former presidential candidate popular in Texas, who dropped out in November.
That's it. The rest of the supposed "coup" here consists of millions of Super Tuesday voters picking Biden over Sanders.
Biden campaign was broke. He barely campaigned in some of the states he won tonight. Voters turned out for him despite this. When Sanders people tell you the primary is rigged against him, ask them how, exactly?
This sort of language is a huge, huge worry for the Democratic Party, which is already terrified of Sanders' voters refusing to support anyone other than their guy against Trump in the general election.
And it reinforces the message coming from Trump himself, that the Democratic Party is trying to "steal" the nomination from Sanders.
'Tremendous pressure' on Warren
The future of Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign was in serious doubt after she finished a surprisingly weak third in her home state of Massachusetts.
"I mean, she came in third – a distant third – in the state of Massachusetts, her home state," Fox News anchor Chris Wallace said.
Elizabeth Warren speaks during a Super Tuesday rally. Photo / AP
"To the degree that she's in the Bernie Sanders camp, and they are the people that are espousing Medicare for All and the Green New Deal – you saw some of the other candidates, the centrist candidates like Klobuchar and Buttigieg, get out, because they believed more in the cause than their own political futures.
"Well, why should she stay in when she's really hurting Bernie Sanders and their common beliefs?
"I would think there's going to be tremendous pressure from the left for her to leave the race."
