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“I’m super overwhelmed by the number of Democratic candidates that have already come out,” Regan Johnson, a 28-year old from Omaha, Nebraska, said Thursday before Sanders’ rally in Council Bluffs. “Hopefully the excitement continues, and we’re able to get a good, viable candidate that can beat Trump.”
As the already large presidential field grows by the week, the enthusiasm that propelled Democrats to a decisive takeover of the House in the midterms is still surging, driving crowd sizes and intensity typically seen in the days before the first caucuses and primaries, not a year ahead of them. Powered by an almost desperate yearning to oust President Donald Trump, and galvanized by the most diverse field in presidential primary history, Democrats are packing into gymnasiums, churches and exhibition halls to hear candidates speak — even if they are far from committed to supporting the candidate they are showing up to see.
The populist message many of the candidates have on offer is resonating: From Northern California to Council Bluffs to the Brooklyn streets of New York where Sanders was raised, voters are delighting in the calls to spurn big donors, the policies to fight wealth inequality and the promises of relief from college debt and steep medical bills.
Harris kicked off her campaign in January with a rally in downtown Oakland, California, before more than 20,000 people. Hundreds turned out to see Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York last month at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, her alma mater. Even Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who briefly toyed with running for president before bowing out this week, lured a throng of New Hampshire voters to a recent meet-and-greet at a bookstore.
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But it Sanders’ ability to muster supporters, and his focus at this point on big, showy rallies rather than smaller events like town halls, that perhaps best captures the early 2020 ebullience. At this stage of the race, his events are also doubling as shows of force — supporters filled a Navy Pier hall in Chicago — evoking the strategy of Trump, whose 2016 campaign gathered momentum in part because of the large rallies he held before similarly boisterous crowds.
Some 2,000 people, many from neighboring Omaha, came to see Sanders in Council Bluffs on Thursday, erupting more than once into now-familiar chants of “BER-nie! BER-nie!” As a band played tunes in an exhibition hall that smelled of freshly popped popcorn, small children amused themselves on a makeshift bed of winter jackets as a group of adults looked on.
(Candidates are not forgoing smaller events completely: Between big rallies in Iowa, Sanders dropped by a senior center in Des Moines on Friday that was hosting lunchtime Bingo.)
Early polling data underscores the displays of grassroots enthusiasm: A recent University of New Hampshire survey showed that more than 60 percent of Democrats said they were “extremely interested” in the primary, significantly higher than they reported at this stage in each of the last three cycles. Overall, half those polled in the state said they were “extremely interested” in the primary.
While the energy has been uplifting for many of the candidates, it has also posed something of a challenge for anyone looking to gauge early-stage popularity: Because voters are showing up in such high numbers and cheering so enthusiastically, even for lesser known candidates, the traditional measures of excitement — crowd size, noise — no longer distinguish individual contenders. (Two candidates who have yet to join the race, Beto O’Rourke and former Vice President Joe Biden, are expected to bring big crowds in their own right.)
“In past cycles, you were there for Edwards, you were there for Barack Obama, you were there for Hillary, you were there for Bernie,” said Sean Bagniewski, chair of the Polk County Democratic Party in Iowa, which includes Des Moines. “All of our Democrats take the prospect of defeating Donald Trump so seriously that it’s almost like everybody is on the same team.”
The early grassroots enthusiasm is also buoying email lists and fundraising numbers. Harris’ campaign, for instance, boasted that it had raised $1.5 million in its first 24 hours. And Sanders’ campaign said it had collected $10 million from 359,914 donors in its first week, an extraordinary number that underscores the power of his small-dollar donor base. His campaign also says that more than 1 million people have signed up as volunteers.
Although many people have not yet decided which candidate they will support, political watchers say the level of engagement is comparable to what they typically see much closer to the primaries and portends high voter turnout.
Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who studies voting data, said he believed enthusiasm and voter turnout were correlated.
“We already know interest is running high given so many other indicators, so I expect turnout will run high for the 2020 primaries on the Democratic side,” he said in an email. In the general election, he added, “We may see a hundred-year storm for turnout.”
But while the across-the-board cheerleading makes it difficult to gauge front-runner status — and may be prompting some candidates to hold big rallies and town halls instead of more intimate events — it has also afforded candidates early validation, to say nothing of an ego bump.
When Booker arrived roughly 20 minutes late for a Sunday evening event at Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina — waylaid by a relentless line of voters seeking selfies — about 300 people in the town of 2,900 were waiting patiently for the senator.
After giving a short speech, followed by a panel, he spent 80 minutes answering questions from the crowd, which refused to thin even as the event stretched past the local restaurant closing times. The senator continued taking photos and Instagramming with supporters well after most of the lights in the back of the hall had been shut off.
One of those still in waiting in line as the clock struck 10 was Clinton Wade, 54. “Just found my candidate after today,” he said as he sought to shake the senator’s hand.
In Gwinnett County, Georgia, last month, more than 1,000 people packed into a high school gymnasium to see Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who delighted the audience with her calls for “Medicare for all” and raising the minimum wage. During her address, the crowd periodically broke out into chants of “Go Liz, go!” and “Warren,” accompanied by crescendos of bleacher-banging.
At Sanders’ rally Thursday, some people seemed almost giddy.
“He inspires all of us,” said Vince Hugelman, 30, who lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. “We love him. It’s great.”
Standing nearby was Louis Trautwein, 25, of Bellevue, Nebraska. “I do like the idea of Bernie,” he said before the event started. “I would like to see what he has to say in person and feel the energy of the crowd.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.