DAVENPORT, Iowa _ For the last five years, Diane and Joel Franken have been fervent students of the politics of Bernie Sanders and the mechanics of his presidential campaigns.
The couple, dressed in matching blue "Bernie" T-shirts for a recent event in Davenport, have seen the Vermont senator speak at 10 rallies, watched him play softball at the Field of Dreams in Iowa, frequently volunteered for the campaign and even housed Sanders campaign staffers in their home for the last two presidential cycles.
They've noticed some differences in 2020 compared with the last go-round: The staff is more diverse and experienced, the campaign is doing a better job of reaching out to black and Latino voters, and the voter contact program is more sophisticated than it was four years ago. Plus, Iowans are far more familiar with Sanders, who now has the benefit of being a household name, with his push for a political revolution well-known to the masses.
"I have no doubt he's going to win Iowa this time. His ground team this year is unbelievable," Joel Franken, a 73-year-old arts educator, said before a recent Sanders rally at St. Ambrose University as his wife nodded in agreement. "They're just so solid organizationalwise, they did well in the caucus system last time _ which is not easy _ and I think they really have it knocked this year."
A key Iowa poll adds to Franken's optimism, placing Sanders atop the Democratic field in Iowa for the first time in either of his runs for president. It's far from a runaway, however, as former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg all remain within a few points of one another in the most recent Iowa surveys.
In poll after poll, however, one advantage Sanders clearly has demonstrated is having the most enthusiastic and committed supporters in the state of any candidate _ important factors since caucusing involves heading out on a likely cold February night the day after the Super Bowl and committing a couple of hours to back a candidate.
Beyond the poll numbers, Sanders has a built-in benefit as the only contender competing in Iowa for a second-straight election, with many of his campaign organizers and volunteers returning. He also holds a growing financial advantage over his fellow front-runners in Iowa, $96 million last year from more than 1 million donors and more than 4 million individual grassroots contributions, a record for a presidential campaign.
All of it comes a few months after Sanders' candidacy appeared to be in peril, with the 78-year-old face of the party's progressive left dropping in the polls and the future of his campaign uncertain after suffering a heart attack and spending several days in a Las Vegas hospital.
His resurgence to the top of the field with less than three weeks to go before Iowa's first-in-the-nation Feb. 3 caucuses has led to new attacks this week from President Donald Trump and Republicans, a rare burst of feuding with fellow progressive Warren and, most of all, the sounding of the alarm from establishment Democrats worried a Sanders nomination could spell defeat in November.
Among the most visible Democrats offering that warning is Rahm Emanuel. In his post-mayoral role as a network TV pundit, Emanuel has contended a Sanders nomination would jeopardize Democrats' control of the U.S. House, create a bleak scenario around the party's hopes to flip the U.S. Senate and make it much harder to defeat Trump in critical swing states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that decided the last election.
"The battle is in the battleground states. The battle is not in the base states. The question is what is the best way to win those battleground states, not the best way to run up the vote in California or New York that are not in doubt at all," said Emanuel, who served as chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, and senior White House adviser and chief campaign fundraiser for former President Bill Clinton.
"If you look at how Bill Clinton won and how Barack Obama won, they won swing states with swing voters," Emanuel said in an interview. "It's that simple."
Sanders and his supporters, however, are banking on breaking that political mold _ in Iowa and across the country.
His campaign not only has pushed back on questions of his electability with "Bernie beats Trump" bumper stickers and buttons at recent rallies, but the Vermont senator also has argued that the path to victory doesn't reside with independent or more moderate swing voters. The way to win, he contends, is to drive new voters to the polls in record numbers by embracing a bold agenda that includes backing "Medicare For All," the Green New Deal, canceling student loan debt, and offering free tuition at public colleges and universities.
"Look, we're in the last few weeks of a campaign, and people are going to say a lot of things, but what I believe, very honestly, is the way we beat Trump, the way we transform this country, is by getting more people ... involved in the political process," Sanders said in response to establishment Democrats raising concerns about him winning the nomination.
"We need a huge voter turnout. We need to appeal to young people and disenfranchised working-class people who are giving up on the political process," Sanders continued, as he worked the rope line at a rally Sunday in Iowa City. "That's the way we're going to beat Trump."
