Will it be Bernie or Joe? Or even billionaire newcomer Mike Bloomberg?
The moment of truth in the Democrat presidential race has arrived, as voters decide whether to take a historic gamble on socialist Bernie Sanders or shift to safer ground with Joe Biden or Bloomberg.
Either way, the race for the right to take on Donald Trump will be reshaped by the Super Tuesday primaries on Wednesday (AEDT), involving 14 states and offering one-third of all delegates needed to win the party’s nomination in July.
So what will we learn? We will learn whether Senator Sanders can pull off a victory that is large enough to make him all but unstoppable to win the Democratic Party’s nomination in July.
Sanders would be the most left-wing presidential candidate in US history, up against the most unconventional president in living memory.
Secondly, we will learn whether the moderate and former vice-president Biden can get enough of a bounce from his big win in the South Carolina primary on Sunday to keep within striking distance of his socialist rival and remain competitive in the race.
Biden’s chances of a bounce have been greatly helped in the past 48 hours by his getting the endorsements of fellow moderates Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, after they dropped out of the race to join his cause.
Thirdly, we will learn whether Bloomberg is able to translate his $US400m-plus advertising campaign into a large-enough number of votes to claim that he, rather than Biden, is the moderate best placed to challenge frontrunner Sanders.
Finally, we will learn whether the Super Tuesday contests will throw an unexpected lifeline to the flagging campaign of Elizabeth Warren.
If not, then the Democrats — the party that brags about its diversity and inclusiveness — is likely to have just three white men older than 75 left in the battle for the right to take on Trump in November.
Sanders enters Super Tuesday in a strong position to entrench his frontrunner status and create a lead in the number of delegates that will be difficult, if not impossible, for his rivals to catch.
The 78-year-old democratic socialist is set to record a strong victory in California, a state that offers 415 delegates and he also leads in Texas, which offers 228 delegates for the Democrat national convention.
Based on the polls, estimates point to Sanders having a lead in delegates after the Super Tuesday contests of anywhere between 200 to 400 over his rivals.
Yet the polls may overstate his support given that they were conducted before Biden turned his campaign around with a landslide victory over Sanders in South Carolina just a few days ago.
They were also taken before Buttigieg and Klobuchar quit the race and threw their support behind Biden.
Primaries are all about momentum, and Biden has it right now. However, he is coming from a long way behind in lots of these states where Sanders has spent many millions over many months shoring up his base.
If the 77-year-old Bloomberg fails to have a strong performance in this, his first actual primary contests, he will come under enormous pressure to drop out and join fellow moderates Buttigieg and Klobuchar in rallying around Biden as an alternative to Sanders.
This Super Tuesday looks certain to live up to its reputation as the most important day of the Democrat presidential race.
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