What did we learn in Tuesday’s CBS debate? We asked four POLITICO campaign reporters — Natasha Korecki, Holly Otterbein, Elena Schneider and David Siders — for their takeaways from the last showdown before the South Carolina primary on Saturday and Super Tuesday just three days after that.

Who had the best night? Who had the worst night?

Siders: Sanders may have had the best night, functionally, since nobody hit him in a way that is likely to damage him. But Biden might have saved his candidacy with the performance he turned in.

For months, Biden only barely survived debates — pummeled here, bumbling there. On Tuesday, he offered a cogent defense of the Obama era, highlighting his experience on issues ranging from gun control to funding for the Centers for Disease Control. He said, “I’m not going to be quiet anymore,” and he wasn’t. Meanwhile, with Biden’s elevation, Buttigieg suffered. He could draw contrasts with Sanders. But Biden has a big part of that lane, and he didn’t give any of it up tonight.

Korecki: The Biden that his supporters and team always wanted finally showed up Tuesday night. He was substantive, feisty and forceful. Biden needs South Carolina to keep his presidential bid alive. He showed that tonight. He began by immediately laying into Sanders on the Vermont senator’s past votes on guns and on Sanders’ flirtation with primarying Barack Obama in 2012. Both points knocked Sanders on his heels — something that so far has rarely happened in this race.

Biggest loser has to go to the moderators. They lacked control, they asked questions already posed in previous debates and overall, they were out of step with the urgency of the moment in the 2020 race — many candidates might be on the brink of elimination and the Democratic establishment is in a frenzy over the prospect that Sanders, a democratic socialist, could win the nomination. Among the subjects they left unprobed: the fact that Warren now has a super PAC supporting her and Biden’s claim that he was arrested attempting to visit Nelson Mandela.

Otterbein: That was a head-scratching debate. Hands down, the moderators had the worst night. There were multiple times where they completely lost control of the event and their questions failed to create a coherent conversation. Biden was energetic and funny, and the consensus seems to be that he delivered one of his best performances this cycle — not a bad media narrative to have days away from South Carolina, which is a must-win primary for him. Warren was sharp, too.

Sanders, the newly anointed frontrunner, faced more incoming than ever. But at the same time, Warren often had his back and his rivals also went after Steyer and Bloomberg. Put another way, things could have been much worse for him. There was no Kamala Harris-on-Biden or Warren-on-Bloomberg-level blow on Sanders, which is notable given that we’re one week away from Super Tuesday and he’s in the lead.

Schneider: I agree that this was one of Biden’s most energetic performances. He certainly wasn’t the strongest debater on stage, but he didn’t need to be. He needed to deliver a competitive showing that would keep his base with him in South Carolina, and I think he was able to do that. Sanders, too, managed to get out of there without any serious hits.

How will this debate change the upcoming primaries?

Schneider: Honestly, there was so much cross-talk throughout much of this debate, it was difficult to figure out what the thread was. It felt disjointed. A hot mess, if you will. And I don’t think there was much clarity gained from it.

Otterbein: I asked Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ senior adviser, what he thought of the debate. “Nothing is changing the trajectory of the race,” he said. He might be right. On the other hand, a stronger Biden is not good for Sanders, if that’s what materializes after this. Biden is much more competitive against him in hypothetical, head-to-head Democratic polls than, for instance, Bloomberg.

Korecki: This debate may have just helped Biden seal the deal in South Carolina. As POLITICO reported on Sunday, powerful House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn is to endorse the former vice president Wednesday morning. Though the deal with Clyburn was already cut, Biden’s performance tonight only makes it an easier sell for Clyburn, who wields huge influence in South Carolina politics. The debate performance and Clyburn’s backing help create much-needed momentum moving into Saturday’s primary.

Siders: This debate was a non-event — but negative space matters. If Sanders had been bruised or Biden faltered, the trajectory of the race might have changed. Instead, Sanders and Biden head into the South Carolina primary largely where they were before, with the rest of the field falling in behind them.

What surprised you most during this debate?

Korecki: If there was one thing that made me sit up, it was this attack from Warren on Bloomberg, when she talked about getting pregnant at age 21, her first year on the job as a special education teacher, which Warren said cost her that job. That is part of a well-worn biographical story Warren has told again and again in this campaign, but what came next was different and very striking. “At least I didn't have a boss who said to me, ‘Kill it,’ the way that Mayor Bloomberg is alleged to have said,” Warren said.

Bloomberg denied ever making the comment. But then he went on to give a massive concession to Warren that I found surprising: “And what the senator did suggest is we release these women from the nondisclosure agreement. I did that two days later, and my company has said we will not use nondisclosure agreements ever again. The senator has got it. And I don't know what else she wants us to do … The trouble is with this senator enough is never enough.”

Siders: Term limits? The filibuster? Questions about candidates’ basic platform positions? This sounded like a second or third debate, not a contest one week before Super Tuesday. It was as though the Democratic Party is not on the edge of a Sanders runaway — and as though the moderators were not aware the campaign did not begin yesterday.

Schneider: Maybe this shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but Bloomberg is not good at telling jokes. Both times he tried it, both times it fell flat. Worse than flat, just awkward. Naked Cowboy? If you’ve never been to New York, does that even make sense? Bloomberg needed to really do well tonight, and I’m not sure he was able to force out the memory of his last debate performance in the minds of voters.

Otterbein: The debate was stunningly discombobulated. If I’m a non-junkie voter tuning into the debate, I think I’d come away from that thinking the Democratic Party was in disarray and the media didn’t do much to help me clarify my choices in the primary. Also, the moderators didn’t really treat Sanders like the frontrunner he is.

Did we learn something new about the candidates?

Otterbein: Sanders still hasn’t figured out a way to deal with questions about his recent Cuba comments. His aides wanted him to argue that Obama has made similar remarks, and he did that, but he needs to make the case more clearly, strongly condemn the Castro regime and then get off the subject if he wants this issue to ever go away. Also noteworthy: Warren, who possesses the ability to crush her rivals on stage like bugs, was largely uninterested in doing that to Sanders. Maybe their non-aggression pact isn’t shredded after all.

Schneider: Sanders and Bloomberg are going to stand by their past comments, as controversial as they may be. Bloomberg defended his handling of nondisclosure agreements with women at his comment who “may not have liked my jokes,” he said last week. On Tuesday night, Bloomberg said in reference to another case he settled with a former employee, “I’m sorry if she heard what she thought she heard.” Sanders, too, stood by his comments about Castro, not back-tracking on his qualified praise of the former Cuban dictator.

Siders: If not new, the debate at least clarified the path forward for Warren in her modeling of a progressive critique of Sanders. It is to accept his assessment of the status quo and to side with him broadly, as Warren did when said to Bloomberg that “a progressive agenda is popular.” And then it is to turn the conversation to implementation.

In Warren’s case, this is a version of the old “plan for that” argument. Implementing a progressive agenda, she said, will be “really hard,” and she asserted that she is the person who “digs into the details to make it happen.” It may be too late for her, but her case to the electorate is essentially, “Bernie, but better.”

Korecki: Warren is turning nearly all of her firepower onto a billionaire and dancing around the frontrunner, Sanders. With the exception of a few minutes at the start of the debate, Warren failed to draw a distinction from Sanders. She attempted to make the point that she was just like Bernie, only better, because she could actually make her policies become reality. But she didn’t hammer home this argument or make it strenuously enough that it created a lasting effect.