There’s no oth­er pos­si­ble inter­pre­ta­tion: Sen. Bernie Sanders pulled off an unprece­dent­ed upset in Iowa last night.

The Iowa results should catapult him even further on the national stage, increasing his visibility in states where large numbers of voters still don’t even know who he is or what policies he believes in.

He tied with his oppo­nent for­mer Sec. of State Hillary Clin­ton, and the two split the 44 del­e­gates almost even­ly between them (23−21). Clin­ton only man­aged to win 0.3 per­cent more precincts than Sanders. Three days ago, the Des Moines Reg­is­ter poll pro­ject­ed he would be defeat­ed by three points — 45 – 42. This poll has tra­di­tion­al­ly pre­dict­ed results cor­rect­ly, and yet was wrong for both par­ties this year — pro­ject­ed Repub­li­can win­ner Don­ald Trump lost to Ted Cruz by four points.

Sanders’ upset is even more notable when tak­en in the con­text of old­er polls. Sur­veys through­out the fall of 2015 pre­dict­ed a Clin­ton vic­to­ry by mar­gins as high as 38 per­cent. In the sum­mer, Clin­ton was expect­ed to win by as much as 43 per­cent. A year ago, in Feb­ru­ary 2015, MSNBC report­ed a project that Clin­ton would win by 61 points, 68 – 7.

No one would have thought, when Sanders announced his cam­paign in May, that the wild-haired, self-pro­claimed social­ist would tie the for­mer First Lady and Sec­re­tary of State in Iowa. These results are a colos­sal rebuke to a Demo­c­ra­t­ic polit­i­cal estab­lish­ment that has sched­uled vital debates on week­ends and dur­ing NFL play­off games, and poured more than $20 mil­lion in super PAC mon­ey into the elec­tion. They also rep­re­sent a major win for pro­gres­sives, show­ing that a gen­uine left­ist can­di­date can be mas­sive­ly pop­u­lar and pull an estab­lish­ment can­di­date to the left.

The tri­umph for Bernie also comes as his cam­paign surges in oth­er areas. Just days ago, his cam­paign announced they had breached a num­ber of fundrais­ing records. In Jan­u­ary alone, they raised $20 mil­lion dol­lars, a record for his cam­paign. Sanders has received over 3.25 mil­lion dona­tions from 1.3 mil­lion peo­ple, an unprece­dent­ed num­ber at this stage of the elec­toral process. He has shocked every group of view­ers, from polit­i­cal ana­lysts to the main­stream media, with his suc­cess. Com­bined with the fact that Bernie is also pro­ject­ed to win by mas­sive mar­gins — as much as 31 per­cent — in New Hamp­shire, the next Demo­c­ra­t­ic pri­ma­ry elec­tion, last night’s cau­cus­es should force the polit­i­cal and media estab­lish­ment to rec­og­nize him as a legit­i­mate candidate.

The Iowa results should cat­a­pult him even fur­ther on the nation­al stage, increas­ing his vis­i­bil­i­ty in states where large num­bers of vot­ers still don’t even know who he is or what poli­cies he believes in.

But despite the com­ing vic­to­ry in New Hamp­shire, Sanders still faces an uphill bat­tle. Most of these revolve around elec­tions in south­ern states, like the key state of South Car­oli­na. There, a large major­i­ty of the state’s black pop­u­la­tion is throw­ing their con­sid­er­able influ­ence behind Hillary, who leads in polls by an aver­age of 29.5 points. Bernie needs to increase his name recog­ni­tion and appeal among vot­ers of col­or in order to win pri­maries in the South.

The issue of endorse­ments also looms over the Sanders cam­paign. Hillary has a vast lead over Bernie in this realm, with FiveThir­tyEight grant­i­ng her 465 ​“endorse­ment points” to his two. She has also field­ed the endorse­ments of a num­ber of high-pro­file unions, includ­ing the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of Teach­ers, the Unit­ed Food and Com­mer­cial Work­ers Union and the Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion of State, Coun­ty and Munic­i­pal Employ­ees. Bernie trails here as well — the largest union that has endorsed him is the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers of Amer­i­ca, whose 700,000 mem­bers fall far short of Clinton’s numer­ous mul­ti-mil­lion mem­ber endorsements.

One of the most impor­tant endorse­ments of the race could be that of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest union fed­er­a­tion. A num­ber of AFL-CIO local and state branch­es have endorsed Bernie, but they were rebuked in July by Pres­i­dent Richard Trum­ka for doing so, as such endorse­ments are against the federation’s rules. The two Demo­c­ra­t­ic cam­paigns are locked in a tight bat­tle for this endorse­ment, hav­ing both met with the union’s polit­i­cal direc­tors last week.

Sanders has a tough slog ahead of him. But com­ing out of Iowa’s near-tie last night, his cam­paign looks stronger than ever. An uncom­pro­mis­ing demo­c­ra­t­ic social­ist climbed up from sin­gle-dig­it Iowa poll num­bers a year ago against one of the most pow­er­ful politi­cians in Amer­i­ca to a draw. Even as strong a mem­ber of the media estab­lish­ment as CNN’s Wolf Blitzer couldn’t call it any oth­er way as the returns rolled in last night: ​“Even if he comes in slight­ly, slight­ly sec­ond, this is a huge win for Bernie Sanders.”