Now that Biden is back in the race, Super Tuesday will play a huge role in deciding Trump’s election opponent

Editorial: With more than a dozen states making their choice for the Democrat presidential nominee on one day, the stakes are high

The race appears to be narrowing to Sanders and Biden (Getty)

Joe Biden was always expected to do well in the South Carolina Democratic primary, but the sheer scale of his victory there – by more than two to one over his nearest rival, Bernie Sanders – is important. It means that as we approach Super Tuesday, where 14 states will vote, a clearer idea of the shape of the presidential election in November is forming.

First, South Carolina shows that it is far too early to write off Mr Biden, a doughty and determined campaigner, if a sometimes forgetful speaker. Mr Biden makes a claim, as a former vice president to Barack Obama, that he enjoys especially strong support among black voters, something that would pay a dividend as soon as the southern states start to come into play. The impressive result in South Carolina would seem to verify that, but also that Mr Biden could build the kind of broad coalition needed to wrest the presidency from Donald Trump, in what will be an unusually brutal contest later this year.

The second lesson is that the Democrat race seems to be narrowing sharply down to Mr Biden and Mr Sanders, given Mr Sanders’ previous relatively strong showing in Nevada, Iowa and New Hampshire. Thus far, Mr Sanders leads on delegates selected for the summer Democratic convention to choose a candidate; Mr Biden is ahead on the popular vote behind those delegate selections. Both are narrow leads, but they are pushing out the others. Tom Steyer, a billionaire hedge fund manager, has pulled out of the Democratic race, as well as Pete Buttigieg. Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, previously prominent, look to be running out of road. The rest of the Democratic hopefuls have secured their places in the footnotes of history, or else laid a marker down for the future.