Bernie Sanders' SC campaign looks different this time.

[Donkees]

BY EMMA DUMAIN AND MAAYAN SCHECHTER
JUNE 10, 2019 05:00 AM

Excerpt:

Sanders has been to South Carolina 22 times since the year began and has locked in 21 local early endorsements, including from nine black state legislators from across the state, including Berkeley, Charleston, Hampton and Richland counties — a number far higher than his line of endorsements in 2016.

His grassroots campaign strategy is to turn S.C. supporters into door-knockers in their own neighborhoods, rather than assigning volunteers — including out-of-state supporters in 2016 — to canvass communities with which they aren’t familiar. That strategy has helped amass 22,000 in-state volunteers as of May, according to Michael Wukela, Sanders’ S.C. communications director.

The campaign also has assigned former Democratic Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner, a Sanders 2020 co-chair and one of the candidate’s most prominent surrogates, to make South Carolina her “adopted home” during this primary season. She said she has traveled to the state nearly every month to forge relationships with civic leaders and lay the groundwork for Sanders’ subsequent visits.

These efforts may be paying off. Recent national polling in South Carolina now puts Sanders in second place out of more than two dozen candidates, trailing only President Barack Obama’s former vice president, Joe Biden, considered the most competitive contender in the field so far. And heading into the 2020 campaign, Sanders also is finding a different environment: An open field in South Carolina.

https://www.thestate.com/news/politics-government/article231246788.html