Maria Galarza had plenty of regrets after the 2016 election.

She hadn’t gotten involved in helping presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign, thinking the race was in the bag.

“But now, there's a lot hanging on this election. I definitely don't want to feel that regret again, like I could have done more to campaign for Hillary,” she said. “I supported her, but I didn't do anything other than get a T-shirt.”

So the 32-year-old Detroiter ventured out on a rainy January night to Brewery Faisan, a pub on the east side of Detroit, to learn more about U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign and how she could help.

While all political eyes may be on the first-in-the-nation caucus in Iowa and the first primary in New Hampshire, hundreds of volunteers are routinely gathering at bars, homes and libraries across Michigan to work for the men and women running for president.

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Even though Michigan’s March 10 presidential primary is an eternity away in the political calendar — 18 states are voting in the weeks before Michigan voters cast ballots — campaigns are gearing up here for the long slog to the Democratic nomination. And President Donald Trump’s campaign is shoring up its base to prepare for the general election in November.

Timing is key for the campaigns because absentee ballots became available on Saturday. The Michigan Democratic Party has been paying particular attention to getting out the early vote.

"We're having conversations with voters about how to take advantage of the new law," said Michigan Democratic Party chairwoman Lavora Barnes, referring to the law that allows anyone to vote by absentee ballot regardless of reason. "It's important for us for two reasons: because the more people we can get signed up for the March primary, then we don’t have to go back to them in November; and it's a really good time for us to exercise those organizing muscles and get even more volunteers activated."

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Among the leading candidates, Warren and New York businessman Mike Bloomberg already have opened offices in the state and hired staff to organize volunteers and activities leading up to the primary. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is benefiting from a large group of loyal followers who felt the Bern in 2016 and still carry a torch. Supporters of South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg are scattered across the state, working the phones and text chains to expand his following and Vice President Joe Biden is counting on a long history of connections in Michigan and a network of well-known state Democrats to spread his message.

And don’t discount campaign cash. Bloomberg and New York businessman Tom Steyer are flooding the airwaves with millions in advertising. Since getting into the race in December, Bloomberg has spent $6.6 million on ads revealing his roots and bashing Trump, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, which tracks campaign spending. It’s part of a $200 million advertising blitz across the country.

The reelection efforts for President Donald Trump also have a significant presence in Michigan with a couple of dozen paid staffers and multiple grassroots events happening in every corner of the state.

Sanders gets early start in Michigan

The activities in Michigan have been ramping up for months and got a kick-start when Detroit hosted an NAACP presidential forum and a Democratic debate in July. With 20 candidates in town for the two nights of nationally televised debates, efforts got underway early to identify and sign up volunteers.

Sanders is benefiting from a broad and passionate coalition of supporters left over from the 2016 presidential election who helped him win a narrow — 49.6%-48.2% — victory over Clinton in the last presidential primary.

“On our Facebook page for Detroit supporters alone, we have 3,000 people, but in Oakland, Macomb and Livingston counties, and up through college campuses and across the state, we’re easily in the tens of thousands,” said Lenka Perron, a St. Clair Shores political activist who has been a Sanders supporter since 2015. “Bernie took Michigan in the last primary and he’s really retained that support.”

The group has shifted some of its focus from seeking out volunteers to work on Sanders’ efforts in Michigan to making phone calls to voters in other, earlier primary states to boost his momentum even before he gets to Michigan. Supporters even held a summit earlier this month to teach Sanders’ volunteers how to work for progressive candidates down the ballot who could help pass Sanders’ agenda should he win the presidency.

But retail politics — knocking on doors and calling voters in Michigan and other states — are happening every day across the state.

“Hello, my name is Susan. I'm a volunteer with the Bernie Sanders campaign,” said Susan Steigerwalt, a retired Detroit physician in one of many calls to voters in Minnesota. “Bernie is working to make this country and the government work for all of us, not just the wealthy few. Are you a Bernie supporter?”

The voice on the other end of the phone hung up. But that didn’t deter Steigerwalt and a group of three other womenwho met and made phone calls on a rainy Saturday afternoon instead of knocking on doors in Detroit.

“Typically, you get about 10 hangups for every one conversation,” she said. “It’s frustrating, except when you have a good conversation, like the funniest one I had was a little old lady who was 83, who was a strong Bernie supporter and she's like, 'I'm going to tell all my friends about the primary date but the ones that I don't like, I'm going to tell them the wrong date.' ”

Nikietta Keith of Redford had better luck, connecting with a voter from whom she was able to extract a promise of not only voting for Sanders in the Minnesota primary, but signing up for volunteer phone banking shifts as well.

Warren first to open campaign office

At the Warren event earlier this month, the decidedly millennial and Gen Z group went around the table introducing themselves, along with the pronouns they preferred, and gave reasons why they supported Warren.

“When I first started paying attention to her campaign, I said to myself, she has all the benefits of Bernie, but doesn't call herself a socialist. I have no problems with calling things socialist, but that scares a lot of people away,” said Ryan Allen, 32, who grew up in Macomb County but now lives in Detroit. “I'm eternally grateful for Sanders’ voice in 2016 and 2018, but I think that Elizabeth has the total ability to get the voters we need to win.”

Warren’s place in the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party, however, gave pause to Galarza, who first was drawn to Warren for her work on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which worked to enact protections for customers of banks and financial institutions.

“I'm really afraid of the whole Northeast liberal elite label because she's from Massachusetts,” she said. “But she’s so relatable when she talks about her history.”

Warren’s campaign opened an office in Detroit in early December and has hired 20 people to help with the organizational efforts. Volunteer phone banks are operating on a daily basis and preparing for the availability of absentee ballots on Saturday, and the campaign is getting hundreds of volunteers to canvass across the state to get people to vote early.

Kyona Watts, 45, an attorney from Detroit, was crushed when Clinton lost the presidency. But she is hopeful that Warren can make sure that history isn’t repeated and a woman wins the highest office in the country.

“She seems more authentic than Hillary, who was shrouded in decades of politics,” she said.

Biden looks to leaders to deliver

Biden has a long history in Michigan, repeatedly returning to the state during his years as vice president. He has been a fixture at the Labor Day parades celebrating unions in Detroit and he came back to help candidates during the 2018 election cycle.

While he doesn’t have many volunteers, campaign offices or any paid boots on the ground in the state yet, his campaign is hoping that Michiganders have long and fond memories of the accomplishments during the Obama years and he’s snagging big name endorsements to help spread that message.

Biden has the backing of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, former Gov. Jim Blanchard and a core group of Detroit legislators. But he also has attracted some outstate legislators who are looking for a more moderate option.

“When I look at what type of candidate Joe Biden is in this election and what my constituents are looking for, he’s listening to the people,” said state Rep. Sarah Cambensy, D-Marquette. “He’s focused on a realistic solution for health care.

“When you have someone like Joe Biden, a lot of the independents and lean Republicans are willing to take a chance on him because he clearly represents pragmatism and common sense that is emblematic up here.”

Buttigieg supporters like pragmatic approach

Jan Dohner, 68, of Dexter became severely depressed after the last election when she volunteered for Clinton’s campaign.

“I was worried about my grandchildren, worried about climate change, worried about having a country where people could treat each other better,” she said. “And I'm originally from Indiana, so I’ve known about Pete for a couple of years since he ran for chair of the Democratic National Committee. And I was always drawn to his more pragmatic reaching across the aisle.”

So she joined a half dozen other volunteers for the Buttigieg campaign at a Panera restaurant in Ann Arbor on a recent Saturday afternoon to plot strategy for the coming weeks.

Heather Hunnell, 38, of Chelsea took an online quiz to see which candidate most matched her ideals. “And the first choice that popped up was Pete Buttigieg.”

She remembered reading an opinion piece that Buttigieg wrote for an Indiana paper talking about coming out as gay. “And I remember thinking, ‘Pete's my age' and after seeing how well our views aligned, I did more research and just really am excited to see someone from my generation, at least putting themselves forward in politics.”

Jill Zimmerman, 46, of Ann Arbor recalled going into her teenage daughter’s room after the 2016 election and apologizing for not working harder for Clinton. She was 100% sure she was going to support a woman in 2020, but then the candidates started emerging.

“I wasn't sure who I would support this time around. But I knew that I was going to find somebody and I was going to work my heart out to help them get elected,” she said. “And then I watched (Buttigieg’s) CNN Town Hall last March. And I was blown away by his intelligence, by his decency, by his integrity. And he just sounded different than any of the other candidates.”

The volunteers in Ann Arbor and across the state are laying the groundwork for after the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, when paid staffers for the Buttigieg campaign will move to Super Tuesday states and some of the six states that vote on March 10.

They’re calling and texting voters in early-voting states and making sure there is a visible presence — yard signs, T-shirts, buttons — throughout Michigan.

Bloomberg making big splash in state

The wild card in the 2020 election cycle is Bloomberg, who is inundating Michigan with money and paid staffers, many of whom are very well-known in political circles. Jill Alper, who has worked on the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Al Gore, as well as former Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s gubernatorial races, and Detroit political consultant Jamaine Dickens are senior advisers to the campaign, former Sen. Ian Conyers of Detroit is the political director and the campaign is in the process of training 12 regional organizers.

About 150 people showed up at a Bloomfield Hills home for a “friendraiser” event last week to learn about the campaign with featured guest Diana Taylor, the former New York State Superintendent of Banks and Bloomberg’s longtime partner. It was part of a three-event day for the campaign and was bookended by a business roundtable and another friendraiser gathering, both in Detroit.

“He wants people to have opportunities. And that's the only way we're going to survive the country. And this guy who's in the office now is going to destroy this country,” Taylor said. “The first thing is, get him out of office. And to my mind, the person who is best capable and most likely to defeat the guy in the office right now is Mike Bloomberg.”

Eugene Goreta of Ecorse attended the event because he’s intrigued by Bloomberg and plans to support him on March 10.

“I like that he’s not controversial and that he’s a successful businessman,” Goreta said.

Carol Banks of Detroit said she was firmly in the Biden camp until a friend told her to do some research on Bloomberg.

“This guy has done such a great job in New York,” she said. “I looked at the way he pays women in his businesses and instead of 70 cents on the dollar, it’s dollar for dollar and that’s what sucked me in. And women in Michigan can really make this happen. Because we vote.”

Trump troops fan out across state

While the Democratic campaigns are gearing up for the primary, Trump’s reelection campaign also is focusing on Michigan, a state he won by the narrowest margin in the country in 2016. Out of more nearly 4.8 million votes cast, Trump won by a 10,704-vote margin.

Even though Trump has little competition in the primary election — former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois and former Govs. William Weld of Massachusetts and Mark Sanford of South Carolina will also appear on the ballot — the campaign has been organizing phone banks, training sessions and canvasses for weeks in every corner of the state.

Vice President Mike Pence has returned repeatedly to the state in the last year and Trump returned to Michigan to rally his base in Battle Creek in December, proclaiming: “And we won Michigan, and the word is that we're much higher right now in the polls than we were ever in 2016 in Michigan."

Nearly all the polls done in Michigan so far have Trump trailing the front-running Democrats — Biden, Sanders, Warren, Bloomberg and Buttigieg.

Between the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and the state Republican Party, there are a couple of dozen paid staffers working across Michigan.

Common goal unites Democrats

The one thing the vast majority of the volunteers on all the Democratic campaigns have in common is a sense of urgency that someone — anyone — needs to beat Trump. And unlike 2016, when many of the supporters of Bernie Sanders decided to stay home, vote for Trump or pick a third-party candidate instead of Clinton, the 2020 election seems to have unified voters.

“Given where we are as a nation, almost every Democrat understands the consequences of this election,” said Barnes. “While they may be disappointed if their candidate loses, they all recognize the importance of standing behind that nominee.

“There’s a saying out there: Fall in love with whoever you want for the primary, but then fall in line.”

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal.

Candidates who will appear on Michigan's primary ballot:

Democrats

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado

Former Vice President Joe Biden of Delaware

New York businessman Michael Bloomberg

New York businessman Andrew Yang

New York businessman Tom Steyer

U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg

Former U.S. Rep. John Delaney of Maryland

*U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey

*Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro

*Author Marianne Williamson of California

*Former U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania

Republicans