The cost of college was a hot-button issue for Robert Kelsall, who said he is concerned about student loan debt. The cost of attending UW-Stout was over $5,000 per semester, he said. That adds up quickly.

Sanders is the only candidate he believes will genuinely address this issue as well as stand up for the LGBT community. And it was important to make his presence known and support his candidate.

“It is really important to get out and get involved right now,” Chippewa Valley Technical College student Stephen Tomlin, who was next in line, echoed. “This will be a make or break state for him (in the primaries).”

Not all the die-hard Sanders fans were college students. West Salem resident Greg Mader, 61, and his daughter Jill Ender, 37, came out to the rally to support and see Sanders speak, respectively.

Mader has no love for conservative politics like those of Gov. Scott Walker. And he feels that Clinton is too mainstream and has been bought and paid for by different interests.

“I have listened to Bernie a number of times,” he said. “I agree with what he is saying.”