Bloomberg’s aides continue to express concerns that Biden and the rest of the Democrats competing in the early states would lose to Trump. They view it as increasingly likely that there will be muddle coming out of South Carolina. And they see Bloomberg’s behemoth organization, growing stable of Super Tuesday endorsements and ability to stretch the map with limitless cash as giving him the edge.

“Our theory of the case hasn’t changed. In fact, it’s looking more and more prescient," said Marc La Vorgna, a Bloomberg senior adviser. "The field isn’t well-positioned to beat Donald Trump, and that is why Mike got into the race."

Despite Bloomberg's protestations that he's only here to help, party moderates worry about failure to unite as Bernie Sanders rises. And the calculation for Bloomberg about whether to stay put or step back for Biden won't necessarily be straightforward: He could confront a scenario where Biden is competitive, but not a juggernaut. Indeed, there are myriad ways for how this might play out.

Biden could knock out Bloomberg with a strong start in the early-state gauntlet. Or, an unexpectedly poor showing could put his campaign on life support, allowing Bloomberg to step into the void. The more likely outcome is somewhere between.

The worst-case scenario for establishment Democrats is that the two 77-year-olds end up dividing moderate support, at a time when the left is coalescing around one standard-bearer.

Bloomberg has no interest in playing spoiler, he’s made clear in conversations with Democratic officials, who relayed his thoughts to POLITICO. Implicit in one recent talk touching on a possible protracted delegate fight was that moderates, with the help of Bloomberg, could walk into the convention with enough votes to swing the nomination away from Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, the official said.

The first big test comes during the month of February.

“It could be that there’s a big jumbled mess of people and nobody clearly out in front,” said Jim Jonas, a Colorado-based consultant who has worked extensively with independent candidates. “Bloomberg is loaded up and he’s going to be the guy available come Super Tuesday. He’s buying a whole lot of activists and a whole lot of infrastructure. That’s real-deal stuff that is not going to show up in polls, at least for another month.”

For Biden, Jonas added, “that inevitability and electability argument may start slipping if he doesn’t have the money and the manpower to play evenly with Bloomberg in the later states.”

Becca Siegel, a senior adviser to Biden, said the team’s strategy hasn’t changed since Bloomberg entered the race in late November. They point to Bloomberg’s polling and say, as of now, he’s on track to hit 15 percent in a best-case scenario, which is the cutoff to win delegates. Short of that, he walks away with nothing.

On Super Tuesday, the first time both men meet on primary ballots, the Biden aides said he is looking to do two main things: Achieve the 15 percent threshold to win delegates in nearly every district. More importantly, Biden plans to home in on districts across Texas, North Carolina and Alabama where he is already dominant. Speaking about the majority-minority districts where Biden’s team believes he has an advantage, Siegel said, “Running up the score in those places is the most efficient way to win delegates.”

In 2016, for example, Hillary Clinton netted more delegates in Alabama than she did in California.

Asked whether they view Bloomberg as a threat in those states, Siegel acknowledged the unprecedented nature of his spending.

“No one has ever spent this much money in a primary,” she said. But, Siegel added, “historically, candidates who play in these first four states [and] get a strong showing in them, do much better on Super Tuesday."

A pair of Biden early victories — even narrow ones — could effectively end Bloomberg’s campaign. “For him to have any hope, Biden has to stumble in a very big way,” said Harold Cook, a Texas-based Democratic strategist.

Bloomberg’s focus on Trump and pledge to financially support whomever emerges as Trump’s opponent has mostly curtailed frank assessments about his Democratic rivals, including Biden. But in an exception, Bloomberg took him on over his lack of executive experience.

“He's never been a manager of an organization. He’s never run a school system,” Bloomberg told an interviewer last month. “The presidency shouldn't be a training job. You need somebody who comes in and knows how to run an organization.”

The line of criticism got a laugh from Biden: “I think Mike’s an interesting guy,” he said.

Biden revealed more when he was asked whether Bloomberg presented a strategic challenge to him even if the former vice president did well in the first four voting states. The billionaire already was promising to spend hundreds of millions on TV advertising.

“Look at the other billionaire, what has he spent what, $35 million bucks? OK, well, show me what it’s done,” Biden said in December, in a reference to billionaire former hedge-fund manager Tom Steyer. “You can’t sit and say if someone’s going to spend, $200, $300, up to a billion of their own money, you can’t say don’t worry about that at all. But … we’ll see. I don’t discount it, but I don’t spend any time thinking about it. Nothing I can do about that. Zero.”

Most of the tussling between the Bloomberg and Biden camps has been over recruiting surrogates and staffers with overlapping friendships and political alliances. Rep. Harley Rouda, a California Democrat who had signed on to an earlier Biden fundraiser but missed it for votes in Washington, recently endorsed Bloomberg a day after he courted his support on Capitol Hill.

Richmond, Va., Mayor Levar Stoney had coffee this month with Bloomberg before a talk on gun-control legislation at the state level. Stoney endorsed Biden on Thursday.

“Mike’s a great friend. One of the greatest philanthropists in the history of the world. A guy who puts his money where his mouth is and I think he was a great leader in New York,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who met with Bloomberg in New York and Los Angeles before formally endorsing Biden and signing on as a national co-chair.

Garcetti told POLITICO that he and Bloomberg talked as he was nearing a final decision. “And I said, ‘Look, if anything happens with Joe, we can have that conversation.’ That said,” he added of Biden, “This was an easy endorsement for me and for L.A.”