For all the talk of Joe Biden’s inevitability, the former vice president has won 45 percent or less of the delegates pledged to date. When the dust has settled on Super Tuesday ballot counting, his 50–75 delegate lead over Vermont senator Bernie Sanders will be smaller than Barack Obama’s more-than-100-delegate lead over Hillary Clinton at the end of February 2008. And it is far smaller than Clinton’s 224 pledged delegate lead over Sanders after Super Tuesday in 2016. Both of those races continued through June, and we should expect that 2020’s Democratic nomination process may well be even more competitive.

Bernie will have to hold Biden to something like 45 percent in the remaining contests. As implausible as that might seem at the moment, it should be remembered that just a week ago, Biden commanded only 15 percent of delegates available through the first three contests.

While Biden does have the wind at his back, “Gaffe Master Flash,” as Jon Stewart once dubbed him, will no longer be able to hide in a crowded field of eight or more candidates all vying for major attention. His speaking time in debates will now need to triple or quadruple, and the penchants for plagiarism and biography embellishment that helped sink previous Biden candidacies will now take center stage.