U.S. Vice President Joe Biden faced an altered political dynamic on Wednesday after Hillary Rodham Clinton reasserted her command of the Democratic Party race during a debate that may have left little room for him to run.

Clinton, 67, was widely hailed by analysts as turning in a nimble, effective performance on Tuesday night, perhaps easing the fears of some Democrats fretting that the flap over her use of a private email server while in the Obama administration was torpedoing her candidacy.

In doing so, she at once may have dampened calls for Biden to make a belated entrance into the race, while also blunting the threat from insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old U.S. senator from Vermont and self-described democratic socialist.