MANCHESTER, N.H.–What do Democratic presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Michael Bennet, and Amy Klobuchar do when they want to be out on the campaign trail – but instead are stuck in the U.S. Senate, serving as jurors in the impeachment trial of GOP President Donald Trump?
The answer, at least with two weeks to go before New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary of Feb. 11, and the Iowa caucuses eight days before, is rely on phone banks, canvassing, surrogate speakers and volunteers. Lots of volunteers.
Oh, and the candidates can, and did, campaign on Sunday when the Senate wasn’t sitting in judgment of Trump.
Presidential hopefuls have always relied on grass-roots troops to canvass supporters, discuss issues with the unconvinced and turn out their backers on primary and caucus election days. But for Vermont’s Sanders, Massachusetts’s Warren, Minnesotan Klobuchar, and Colorado’s Bennet, that’s even more vital now, since they’re sitting at their Senate desks during the week.
Personal stories from volunteers on the ground or on the phones help those hopefuls. Susnik Lama, a medical student who’s taken time out from her studies to be the field organizer of Sanders’s Manchester, N.H., office, said in an interview that health care and student loans brought her into the campaign, and people’s worries about health care – which her volunteers relate to – bring voters in, too.
“People talk about health care a lot” when the legions of Sanders volunteers knock on their doors, she said. “Either they’re trying to have health care coverage for themselves, or...
READ MORE »
