Elizabeth Warren had an impressive weekend. She went to Oakland, hometown of Kamala Harris, and drew 6,500 people. She went to the California Democratic Party Convention and drew headlines for taking not-so-veiled shots at frontrunner Joe Biden: “Some say if we all calm down, the Republicans will come to their senses. But our country is in crisis. The time for small ideas is over.” Those two stops, in front of thousands of voters and hordes of political media, capped a formidable month for Warren, whose chances seemed dim after an underwhelming, beer-drinking New Year’s Eve campaign launch. But an old-fashioned dedication to retail politics is paying dividends. Warren spent last year taking questions in middle schools and at cookouts, from people in Worcester and Pittsfield and Gloucester and Dorchester and Harwich and Salem—doing 38 town halls in all, during a senate reelection race she won in a landslide, when barely any political reporters were paying attention. Now, as Bernie Sanders stalls in national polling, Warren appears to be rebounding.

“It was a very smart thing to do,” a top Democratic strategist who's a longtime Sanders ally says. “It tuned up Warren for the way you campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire. And if I were on Bernie’s team, I’d be panicked about her in New Hampshire.” Indeed. Four years ago, Sanders crushed Hillary Clinton 60-38 in his backyard; now he’s behind Joe Biden by 21 points in the most recent survey, and Warren trails Sanders by one point—after being down by 25 as recently as late April. Warren’s gains in Iowa have been more modest—but she has built probably the most extensive campaign infrastructure in the state, with about 50 full-time organizers on the ground. “Some of the top-tier candidates don’t appear to give a shit about Iowa,” one of the state’s top labor union strategists says. “Biden is skipping the Iowa Democratic Hall of Fame dinner next weekend, which is bizarre. The standouts have been Cory Booker and Warren. She has a really large infrastructure here, and a lot of Bernie’s support seems to be drifting to Warren.”

Warren is campaigning energetically in South Carolina and Nevada and California, but she is not completing buying into the emerging consensus that social media, cable news, and Donald Trump have nationalized the primaries and reduced the impact of the early states. Warren is betting that the traditional dynamics still carry great weight and that, in a crowded field, strong showings in the first two states to vote are key. Her first campaign stop, in January, was in Sioux City. For Warren, winning either Iowa or New Hampshire outright would be huge—but beating Sanders, and owning the progressive lane, is essential. “If you had talked to me in ‘18 or ‘17 about Warren, I would have said to you I don’t see how she gets to Bernie’s left. And she’s done it!” the Sanders ally says. “That’s partly sloppiness on his part. His candidacy this time around has ended up being a greatest-hits act. What new energy or idea is he bringing to the table? Warren has outmaneuvered him on policy.”

Where Sanders has proposed free college, for instance, Warren has gone a step further, proposing to eliminate federal student debts. Her plans for child care and a wealth tax have also come across as fresher and more detailed. Those ideas were rolled out after months of research, but Warren has also been deft and opportunistic on shorter notice, calling Fox News a “hate-for-profit racket” when she rejected participation in a town hall with the network. “You're seeing a candidate who actually came into the race with theory of how she wanted to run, and she’s executed,” the Democratic strategist says. “She looked dead in the water at the start of the year. Now she’s in position to seize the nomination.”