Story highlights

A larger turnout should help Bernie Sanders if he can convince first-time caucus-goers to show up

Clinton's campaign had 30 paid staffers in Iowa last spring and by August, had at least one supporter in each of Iowa's 1,681 precincts

Carroll, Iowa CNN  — 

With just a couple of tables, a stack of boxes and some Bernie Sanders posters tacked to the wall filling their one big, empty room, there’s no doubt: This crew looks like the underdogs.

Three volunteers – all getting involved in a political campaign for the first time – and a young staffer named Charlie Dominick are trying to harness the momentum of a surprise, last-minute surge a few days after Sanders had come to town.

“You can definitely tell – people are getting excited. People that didn’t want to volunteer before are ready to start now,” said Emma Schmidt, 21, of rural Calhoun County who administers three pro-Sanders Facebook pages and hosts speech and debate watch parties – but has never caucused before.

In Iowa, it actually does all come down to turnout. A larger turnout should favor Sanders, who is banking on bringing younger voters who haven’t participated before in presidential elections to the caucuses. Smaller turnout will likely favor Hillary Clinton, who has concentrated on the more traditional, committed Democratic audience. How those two campaigns are able to get their backers to show up Monday will play the key role in determining how far the Democratic primary goes

In 2004, about 124,000 people showed up – with that year’s liberal insurgent, Howard Dean, particularly let down by the turnout, losing to John Kerry and never recovering. Four years later, in 2008, an intense three-way race and Barack Obama’s vaunted field operation nearly doubled that number, to 239,000 participants.

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No one – not even Sanders himself – is forecasting turnout that high again.

“Frankly, I don’t think we can” match 2008, he said Monday.

But Sanders’ overwhelming advantage in polls among young people and first-time caucus-goers makes clear that the more people who participate, the better he’ll do.

Clinton’s campaign, however, is way ahead of the organization game.

Her hyper-organized campaign manager Robby Mook dispatched 30 paid staffers to Iowa last spring while Sanders was still little more than a protest candidate. By August, Clinton’s campaign had at least one supporter in each of Iowa’s 1,681 precincts.

The jump-start in recruiting an army of volunteers and “precinct captains” meant Clinton’s campaign could more quickly identify her supporters, make personal contacts, deliver door-hangers and help her backers find their caucus sites. That’s all particularly important in Iowa, where caucusing can be a three-hour, public affair that pits friends and neighbors against each other.

“It takes a lot of time and energy to get these people really engaged,” said Norm Sterzenbach, a strategist at GPS Impact and former Iowa Democratic Party executive director. “You need local volunteers to help you do this. You need Iowans to help explain this strategy and get people to do this.”

At Clinton’s office

Just three blocks east from Sanders’ office here in Western Iowa, Clinton’s storefront shop is humming. A dozen volunteers, including two coordinators, and local organizer Kate Magill are there. The walls are decorated with schedules, pro-Clinton talking points and posters signed by Clinton’s famous surrogates. Tina Ward-Pugh, a 16-year member of Louisville, Kentucky’s council, is back in Iowa to “finish what we started eight years ago.”

They’re part of a Clinton operation that has already finished two January test runs of their caucus-day plans and their get-out-the-vote operation, which will unleash thousands of volunteers departing from more than 150 locations.

Most of them watched Clinton lose eight years ago, and they say her organization now matches the Barack Obama operation that beat her in 2008. Still, there’s a sense of anxiety over whether Sanders can pull in voters who aren’t even on their radar.

Jean Guy, a 65-year-old Catholic high school teacher in town, said it’s hard to dispute Sanders has “caught fire.”

“Who would disagree with anything Bernie says?” she said. “I mean, great – I want all that, too. And I would also, while we’re at it, like two weeks guaranteed at Disney World every year.”

For the final days before Monday night’s caucuses, they’ll mostly drop their attempts to find potential caucus-goers and persuade them. Instead, they will enter full get-out-the-caucus mode – dispatching herds of volunteers to knock on doors, deliver door-hangers and find ways to drive people to their local precincts if they can’t drive themselves.

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Sanders playing catch-up

Sanders has drastically expanded his Iowa operation in December and January as his poll numbers – and online donations – surged.

He’s nearly matched Clinton now on the ground. She has 26 organizational offices with paid staffers throughout Iowa; he has 23 – even if they’re hastily opened and sparsely decorated.

“The Sanders campaign was really still building the plane as they were flying it, but to their credit they have built an impressive organization given the time they had to build it,” said Brad Anderson, a Democratic strategist who led President Barack Obama’s re-election effort in Iowa in 2012.

Tom Clark, a 60-year-old county maintenance worker in Maple River, had never considered volunteering for a politician until he heard Sanders on a local radio show.

“I was one of these guys that maybe just let it go, didn’t care,” he said. “I said, ‘God, nobody’s talking about this my whole life, and this guy’s talking about it.’ It inspired me.”

Sanders’ campaign got a late start in harnessing the thousands of people who show up at his events. Now, though, his camp carries iPads and asks attendees to register electronically.

It allows them to skip the data entry and quickly follow up with people – especially potential first-time caucus-goers – who only show up in the campaign’s final days.

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Sanders himself offered a blunt assessment of his Iowa operation after a meeting with steelworkers in Des Moines on Monday.

“We started out organizing in Iowa a lot later than Senator Clinton did. She was here in 2008; has the experience we didn’t have. She’s done this before, we didn’t. She has a very strong organization. And I applaud her for that,” he said.

“But I will tell you that the last couple of months we have gained a whole lot of ground and again I think we stand a real chance to create a large voter turnout.”

The makeup of his support – young and new to the process – means his challenge is doubly difficult: Not only has Sanders had to race to build a competitive field organization in two months; his organizers and volunteers must try to reach a much larger universe of potential supporters than Clinton’s operation is targeting.

“On the Sanders campaign, they’re obviously focused on turning out their supporters, but I’m pretty confident they’re also banking on a wave of new, additional supporters – engaged, watching, wanting to participate, but not on their radar screen,” Anderson said.

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O’Malley fans’ second choice

One major unknown that has Iowa Democrats buzzing is the race’s third candidate: former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Under Democratic caucus rules, candidates have to reach 15% support in a precinct to be considered “viable” and eligible to win any delegates. Supporters of candidates who fall short, though, get the choice to realign behind another contender.

O’Malley’s support is small, but those who are backing him tend to be committed caucus-goers who understand the process, would never skip it and know how to cut deals.

If the race is a nail-biter, they could make a difference – particularly in precincts with odd numbers of delegates at play – 11, rather than 10, for example – because they could tip what looks like a tie into a victory for either Clinton or Sanders.

O’Malley backers say they’re hearing from both campaigns – each cribbing Obama’s 2008 strategy of trying to become the second choice of voters who started in the camps of the lowest-polling candidates. Several Democratic strategists said they expect O’Malley’s supporters to split about 60/40 in Sanders’ favor.

Location, location, location

The campaigns are telegraphing their strategies to turn out votes through where the candidates themselves are spending time.

Each of Iowa’s 1,681 precincts has delegates to win – and the caucus results are based on who nets the most delegates, not who gets the most overall supporters.

Clinton’s events have been concentrated in delegate-rich urban and suburban areas – particularly those she lost in 2008. Winning those areas, or even keeping them close so Sanders can’t run up a big lead, could be the difference.

Sanders, meanwhile, has hit college towns and typically unvisited portions of Iowa’s cities – but he has also spent more time in rural areas where Clinton could fare well. Keeping her from running up an insurmountable lead in those areas could give him a win.

Iowa strategists said Clinton’s schedule has been particularly shrewd, while Sanders’ reflects a candidate intent on broadening his appeal.

“I think it makes a ton of sense to go to those areas where you need turnout to really be high and clearly the schedule reflects that on the Clinton side,” Anderson said.

“He really has been focused on the college towns, which seems to be a strategic move. … But getting college students to caucus is a really, really heavy lift.”