COLUMBIA, S.C. _ Joe Biden pulled it off.
Biden won the South Carolina Democratic primary in dominant fashion Saturday, giving him a chance to establish himself as the leading rival to the front-runner, self described democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
It was Biden's first win in a single nominating contest in his third campaign for the presidency, spanning 33 years.
The victory, after dismal showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, vaulted Biden to the front of the pack among Democratic moderates, heading into Super Tuesday next week, when 14 states will award more than one-third of the delegates needed to win the nomination. It raised immediate questions about whether his center-left rivals should stay in the race.
In winning South Carolina, Biden demonstrated his strength with black voters, a critical Democratic constituency, while opponents such as Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar struggled, pointing to the limits of their appeals. Several southern states with large black populations vote Tuesday.
Biden, meanwhile, will hope for a repeat performance on Super Tuesday next week, when another slew of southern states votes and when he again hopes black support will propel him. Biden doesn't have the resources or field operations of leading competitors like front-runner Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and billionaire New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who will be appearing on the ballot for the first time.
The win immediately added to the chorus of voices from moderate party elders calling for other candidates to get out of Biden's way. Many Democrats are desperate to find someone who can coalesce moderate voters and stop Sanders, viewed by many insiders as too liberal to win a national race.
"If you do not have a pathway, let's not wait until Super Tuesday," former Virgina Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who endorsed Biden on CNN. "If you don't have a pathway, who is it that you think is the most electable and can help the Democratic Party from the top to the bottom in all the local races and the statewide races?"
Biden had invested heavily in South Carolina, spending most of the last couple weeks campaigning here, and he was one of the only candidates who stayed in the state for the results. Sanders had moved on to Virginia and Bloomberg, who was not on the ballot here, was in North Carolina.
"There are a lot of states in this country. Nobody wins 'em all," Sanders said at a rally in Norfolk, Va. He touted his earlier wins in New Hampshire and Nevada, and popular vote victory in Iowa.
With Biden declared the winner minutes after polls closed, the crowd at the University of South Carolina's volleyball center broke into a dance party. MSNBC flashed results of Biden with a huge lead and Lorenza Breedlove let out a "Go Joe!" Breedlove, 67, a retired insurance agent said "this was exactly what he needed. If he can carry this energy, he's got it."
Breedlove thinks Rep. Jim Clyburn's endorsement was a huge last-minute push for Biden. "It moved a lot of people off the fence, she said, clarifying, "I was never on the fence. Joe was always my man."
Kathy Mahoney, a Columbia lawyer, said she was proud of her state, as people near her agreed. "Our state is a microcosm of the country. This was our own chance to stand up and say, 'here's a group of modern, diverse people with integrity who want to nominate someone _ somebody who we want to be proud of.'"
Critical to Biden's win was his support from black voters, who make up about 60% of the Democratic primary electorate in the state.
"I think there are people who underestimate what Joe Biden means to South Carolina and how people view him in South Carolina," said Fletcher Smith, a former state representative and Biden consultant. "And I think it extends beyond South Carolina to Super Tuesday's southern states. where there's a strong rural presence but also the flirtation of urban and suburban-ness."
Smith predicted there will be fractures within the black community _ as there appeared to be in South Carolina, with older and younger black voters split on Biden. "I think in the end Joe Biden is poised to do well (with black voters) and so will, in all honesty, Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg," Smith said.
With several additional southern states set to vote Tuesday, many with similarly large black populations, Biden's win could reorder the race by dooming rival moderates such as Buttigieg and Klobuchar, who have failed to gain much support from people of color, a key piece of the Democratic coalition.
"This thing could narrow down very quickly to a race between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden," said David Axelrod, Barack Obama's former strategist.
South Carolina could signal good things for Biden in states with similar electorates like Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Oklahoma and Arkansas _ all voting Tuesday. The website five-thirty-eight has him favored in those states and Sanders as the presumed front-runner in non-southern states.
"The candidates other than Sanders and Biden have tough decisions to make quickly," tweeted University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato.
Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey signaled Saturday night that the former New York mayor would remain in the race at least through Tuesday's coast-to-coast contests. "Mike Bloomberg has not been on the ballot yet," Sheekey said in a statement.
At the polls in Columbia Saturday, Tonya Arthur, 49, said she voted for Biden because, "We know him here. It wasn't a tough decision and I think he has the best chance about Trump, I hope so anyway."
"I think he understands middle class people," Arthur said. "I think he's got a pretty good chance if people get out and vote."
Frederick Hogett Jr., 51, thinks Biden has the best chance against Trump: "And he has similar views to Barack Obama because he was his vice president, and for me also theologically, listening to all the [other] candidates at the debate _ they were all over the place and my Christian values are really important to me.
Crystal Tucker, 35, pulled into her polling station unsure who she'd vote for between Biden and Tom Steyer, who went all in on the state, investing an unprecedented $23 million in television and digital advertising in the state.
Once inside she picked Steyer, partly because her cousin works for him and she liked the positive things her cousin had to say. "I felt it would be good to have a new person, a breath of fresh air."
Maria Ragin also voted for Steyer. She likes his push for congressional term limits. "It was between him and Joe Biden. I voted for Tom because of term limits and his view on climate control."
Steyer later announced he was dropping out of the race.
Many younger South Carolinians said they voted for Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Saturday.
Lizzie Grosso, a 20-year-old art student at the University of South Carolina voted for Sanders after attending a rally at a city park in Columbia the day before. Grosso is Latina and said she feels like she has a place in Sanders' campaign. "I'm not alienated and he's doing things that support people like me and truly people of color and that's just something we haven't seen in this country unfortunately," she said.
She thinks Biden's support within the black community is overrated. "It's superficial, she said at the Sanders rally. "If you look around here you see real diversity."
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