“He was winning by 35 points a month ago, and quite frankly now the question is whether he will win at all,” Sheekey said, chiding anchor Stephanie Ruhle for her use of the word “surge.”

The Bloomberg aide's remark came before a new poll dropped Thursday morning showed Biden with a massive lead in the first-in-the-South primary state, demonstrating a commanding advantage with the state's majority-black Democratic electorate.

A resounding win in the state could offer Biden's campaign a reset of sorts, and a much-needed injection of momentum going into Super Tuesday on the heels of abysmal showings in Iowa and New Hampshire and a distant second-place finish in Nevada.

And it would pose a clear threat to Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York, whose late entry into the Democratic race has kept him out of the first four primary races. The fomer mayor has largely bet his moderate-lane candidacy on a weakened Biden.

Ultimately, Sheekey argued Thursday, the quick turnaround between South Carolina and the trove of delegates up for grabs when more than a dozen states go to the polls 72 hours later means that little in the race will change until then.

“I think we're gonna have a really good idea about how it looks after Tuesday. It’s unclear to me whether Saturday is going to decide much or not,” he contended.

“Obviously it’d be an enormous blow to the vice president if he lost or just won by a little. But either way South Carolina is not going to matter — it doesn't appear to me that anyone is gonna get out of this race before that.”