Iowa gives MN partisans an early taste of Clinton-Sanders showdown

Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer Heather Adams was making her way down a frozen, snow-covered sidewalk in a working-class neighborhood of Mason City. It was so cold she couldn't use her pen to take notes about who's supporting which candidate.

"Actually, the ink in the pens freezes," she said.

Adams is used to cold weather. She's a Minnesotan. The 39-year-old middle school teacher has made the trip to Iowa several times over the past few months to help Sanders.

"I sort of have lost count," she said. "At least seven, I think." She explained that she supports Sanders because he wants to get corporate money out of politics.

An hour and a half to the south, in Ankeny, Minnesotan Natalie Shaw was doing similar work for Hillary Clinton.

Like Adams, Shaw, who's 21 years old, has made repeated trips to Iowa. She said Clinton's wealth of experience as senator, secretary of state and first lady makes her most qualified to be the Democratic candidate.

Since Shaw began promoting her campaign, Clinton's Iowa lead has vanished. Is Shaw worried?

"Um, a little bit," she said.

But Shaw said she thinks Clinton backers are more likely to close the deal than Sanders fans.

"The people that I've talked to that are Hillary supporters are like 100 percent going to go out and caucus," she said. "These are caucus-goers for the most part."

Iowans will cast the first votes in the 2016 nomination process on Monday, Feb. 1. Minnesota's precinct caucuses come a month after Iowa's, on March 1. It's known as Super Tuesday because 15 states are holding primaries or caucuses that day.

Steven Schier, political science professor at Carleton College, said that if Clinton is in trouble in Iowa she's probably got problems in Minnesota too.

"There are important similarities at the activist level between the Iowa and Minnesota state parties," he said.

A Star Tribune poll released over the weekend showed Hillary Clinton with a strong lead among Minnesota Democrats who are registered to vote, but the poll didn't target likely caucus goers.

Minnesotans who attend DFL precinct caucuses typically support the far-left candidate, he explained. "They tend to be strongly liberal and will, I think, find Bernie Sanders from the political left quite persuasive," Schier said.

That left-leaning tendency could be a problem for Clinton this year, just as it was for her establishment campaign in 2008. That year, Barack Obama defeated her by a more than 2-1 margin in Minnesota.

DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin is backing Clinton right along with most of the state's prominent politicians, including Gov. Mark Dayton and Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar. Still, Martin acknowledged that Clinton by no means has a lock on Minnesota.

"It's anyone's guess at this point what's going to happen," he said.

But when it comes to caucus success, Martin said, thorough organization trumps popularity contests. He said Clinton learned from her poor organization eight years ago.

"They have a very extensive and robust organization that's doing the work they need to, to put themselves in a position to win," he said.

Clinton opened her Minnesota operation in the spring, closed it and then reopened it in August. Sanders didn't open his first Minnesota campaign office until December, but now he has five up and running around the state.

Robert Dempsey, who's in charge of Sanders' Minnesota effort, described the state as essential to Sanders' nomination victory. His campaign is converting popular support into a well-organized caucus plan, he said.

"We know that we have the support of the vast majority of DFLers in Minnesota and we have hundreds of thousands of individuals that have approached us that want to get involved," Dempsey said. "And we are busily putting them into leadership positions throughout the state."

With contests in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina coming before so many states vote on Super Tuesday, it's not clear how many times the candidates will come to Minnesota between now and the caucuses. But Bernie Sanders' visit this week, with two rallies planned for Tuesday, may draw Hillary Clinton to the state soon as well.