Analysis: Joe Biden's Virginia rebound shows the shift in the race is real

Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally. Photo / AP

A Virginia poll conducted by Monmouth University in the middle of last month captured the state of play after New Hampshire.

Joe Biden, who had been blown out in the Granite State, had slipped into a three-way tie after holding a clear lead in the state for months.

Billionaire Mike Bloomberg, coasting on the strength of massive investments in television ads and staff, now joined him among the front-runners. Nationally, things looked similar: Bloomberg eating away at Biden's support.

That dynamic lasted past the middle of February.

With South Carolina looming last week, it still seemed feasible that Bloomberg might either displace Biden's position as the leading moderate candidate or, at least, stand as an obstacle to the former vice-president.

Then Biden won South Carolina and picked up the endorsements of three of his former opponents, and within 72 hours, his campaign's fortunes had reversed. How that might affect voting on Super Tuesday, though, wasn't clear.

Apparently driven in part by Bloomberg's poor performance in a debate in Nevada, late polls in South Carolina showed a sudden spike in support for Biden in the state, a surge that was manifested in the result.

After he won there, polls showed a similar surge for Biden nationally, too, in other contested Super Tuesday states — raising the possibility that Biden could overperform broadly in today's contests. When polls closed in Virginia, that possibility became a reality.

As big as Biden's South Carolina win was, his win in Virginia isn't far behind.

North Carolina and Alabama, which also like South Carolina and Virginia have significant populations of African Americans, have been called for Biden on CNN.

It shows that South Carolina wasn't really a fluke and that Biden's campaign is back on track.

For the most part, it's the track we'd have expected him to be on six months ago, but it's not the track he appeared to be on last week.