CLEVELAND, Ohio – If there were any questions about former Vice President Joe Biden’s rebound in the South Carolina Democratic presidential primary, there shouldn’t be after Super Tuesday.

Biden way outperformed his expectations, dealing a pretty huge blow to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ chances of getting the nomination. Sanders looked like a powerhouse through the first three states, but couldn’t come up with victories in quite a few key states.

Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg ended up being a nonfactor and ended his presidential bid Wednesday morning. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s time is probably coming to an end soon after finishing third in her home state.

That said, the race is very far from being over and Ohio will absolutely play large part with its March 17 primary (though we might not have clear results the night of the election because I’ve probably been trapped in Iowa for a month and not realized it).

So what can Super Tuesday teach us about the Ohio primary? Here’s a look.

Biden is the favorite

Last week, I wrote a piece on who the frontrunner was in Ohio at the time. My plan was to update it frequently as the race moved along, since there were enough candidates to rank.

That’s not the case anymore, but the list still needs updating. Originally, I said Sanders was the clear frontrunner, but Sanders’ inability to consolidate support and Biden’s rebound have made the race close.

Biden showing strength makes him the candidate to beat in Ohio. The Sanders campaign realizes that: they’re going up with TV ads in Ohio attacking Biden for wanting to freeze federal spending, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

There was a lot of interesting demographic information to come out of Super Tuesday last night, but I want to point out one in this section. Specifically from Virginia and North Carolina, the two states that very roughly line up the most with Ohio in terms of demographics.

Exit polling from both states showed Biden winning convincingly among voters who thought it was more important to elect a candidate who can beat Republican President Donald Trump than one who agreed with them on most issues. The group who wanted a candidate who can beat Trump accounted for 58% of Democratic primary voters in Virginia and 63% in North Carolina.

Exit polling is imperfect, but can tell us some things. Especially when it comes to this sentiment.

Consider for a moment the state of Democrats in Ohio. There hasn’t been a lot of winning lately outside of Sen. Sherrod Brown, and they got smoked in 2016 by Trump. They haven’t been able to claim any real significant victories since 2012.

So what’s more likely in the state: Democrats take a chance on a “risky” more liberal candidate (Sanders) or stick with what they consider the “safe” option and just try to remain competitive (Biden)?

The Sanders fear is real

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., arrives to speak during a primary night election rally in Essex Junction, Vt., Tuesday, March 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)AP

For weeks I’ve been talking with Democrats around the state, just catching up and getting opinions. I admittedly haven’t spoken to everyone, but there’s almost always a common theme of people dreading the prospect of Sanders getting the nomination.

That was clear nationally as former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota dropped out before Super Tuesday and instantly endorsed Biden. I don’t know what happened in the background, but it was pretty clearly a consolidation of the more moderate wing of the party.

And it’s clearly working, based on the results from Tuesday night. Sanders had much softer support. He lost Minnesota and Massachusetts, two states where he was slightly favored over Biden. While he won California, it wasn’t as strong a victory as he’d probably hoped for.

Key demographics

Biden once again did exceptionally well with black voters. Black voters backed Biden to the tune of 62% in North Carolina – where they accounted for 27% of the vote – and 69% in Virginia – where they accounted for 28% of the vote.

The other demographic that Biden did very well with is voters in the 45-64 age range. Exit polling showed that age group backed Biden heavily in Alabama, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. He led Sanders within the margin of error in California.

That bodes well for his chances in Ohio. Exit polling from the 2016 Democratic presidential primary showed black voters constituted 20% of the electorate. Voters aged 45-64 were 41% of the total.

The Midwestern referendum

The Super Tuesday results left a clear opening for the Midwest to be the deciding factor in the primary.

First, there’s Michigan on March 10, which will almost surely be used as a referendum by whichever candidate wins. It’s hard to make the argument that you can carry the Midwest en route to the presidency if you can’t even win the primary there.

Ohio the following Tuesday will be another kind of referendum of sorts. The state leans Republican, but a win here by either candidate would give them the ability to say they can “win where Trump won.”

Go ahead and vote

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been saying that it’s probably prudent for Ohioans to hold their primary vote if they want to cast their ballot for a winner. But with the field basically cleared to two candidates (or three if Warren doesn’t drop out), the race is essentially set. You’re probably not in danger of wasting your vote on someone who won’t be in the race in two weeks.