With just 12 days before the Iowa caucuses, the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is ramping up its voter turnout efforts throughout the state. And Sanders has embarked on a bus tour to visit the more rural parts of Iowa.
For months, Bernie Sanders has been speaking to big crowds in the larger cities and college towns in Iowa. Now the strategy is shifting to get Sanders to deliver his economic message in the smaller communities of the state.
It's known as the “Bernie Bus Tour" and the candidate is traveling hundreds of miles a day in a newly-outfitted campaign bus that boldly displays the "Bernie in 2016" campaign logo painted along the length of the vehicle.
Campaign manager Jeff Weaver says it's critical for Sanders to take the campaign to every part of Iowa.
“What is curious when you have a caucus system is that it's not just the number of votes you get, but where those votes are. So we need to make sure that our voters come out across the state,” Weaver says. “Because essentially you have a series of many, many small elections … So you have to do well everywhere essentially in order to win."
Weaver says the key to doing well in Iowa is putting together a massive get-out-the-vote campaign.
“We're working very hard out here. We have a very large organization. We've been identifying voters who are supporting Bernie out here … there are many,” Weaver says. But the key is … to make sure that folks come out to the caucuses on Feb. 1.”
"We need to make sure that our voters come out across the state. Because essentially you have a series of many, many small elections." - Jeff Weaver, Sanders campaign manager
Norwich University political science professor Megan Remmel says there's no doubt that Sanders is doing much better than Hillary Clinton with younger voters in Iowa. But that’s an unreliable group of voters, Remmel says.
“It's a group of voters that tends to be very hit or miss … whereas the Clinton campaign has solidly more support in the 50-and-up demographic, and that's your group that is reliable and is going to show up to vote,” Remmel says.
In the past week, polls in Iowa show that a number of Clinton's supporters now identify themselves as being undecided. Remmel says this presents a challenge to the Sanders precinct captains in Iowa's nearly 1,800 caucuses.
"The Bernie Sanders camps at all of these different caucus meetings are going to need to be able to make an argument that Bernie Sanders isn't just a candidate that appeals to liberal Democrats of a variety of ilks, but that he could actually sway independents, and even maybe some moderate Republicans in the general election come November,” Remmel says.
Campaign manager Weaver says he views the outcome of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary somewhat differently.
"Look, I think we have to do very well in Iowa. It's never been a must-win for us,” he says. “New Hampshire is a different story. You know, New Hampshire is a state where Bernie has run strong from the beginning. So I think expectations in New Hampshire are somewhat higher."
Weaver says that starting this Saturday, Sanders will hold events in Iowa every day before the Feb. 1 caucuses.
