HUDSON, N.H. — Bernie Sanders may not have dominated the first Democratic presidential debates — but his policies did.

And the Vermont senator knows it.

At the opening of his Greater Nashua area field office Saturday, Sanders referenced a Wall Street Journal op-ed with the headline, “Bernie Sanders Won the Debate.“

“Bernie Sanders won both debates, even the debate I wasn’t in,” Sanders told a crowd of more than 200 that spilled out of the strip mall storefront in Hudson. “So how did we win a debate that we weren’t even participating in? Because of New Hampshire and 21 other states that supported our agenda, other Democratic candidates now understand that they have got to talk to the needs of the working class of this country.”

Amid cheers, Sanders said, “Everybody said our ideas are crazy and wild and extreme, and now it turns out all the other candidates are saying what we said four years ago.”

From “Medicare for All” to free college, ideas that Sanders has long championed were key components in the Miami debates. Both nights, candidates were asked if they were in favor of abolishing private health insurance in favor of a government-run plan. And socialism in the Democratic Party was up for debate on the second night, as Sanders, the self-proclaimed “Democratic socialist,” stood center stage.

Policies like those remain key to Sanders’ platform as he bids for the White House once again. But as Sanders spoke Saturday in Hudson, Michele Linnen, a social worker from Bedford, Mass., yelled out from the crowd, “We need specifics.”

Sanders didn’t acknowledge her. Afterward, Linnen said Sanders’ “framing of his good messages, his necessary messages, needs to be majorly tweaked.”

“I’ll tell you, Elizabeth Warren has it down. She’s able to get kind of unsexy or overwhelming or intimidating information about policy and translate it for the average lay person,” Linnen said.

Sanders got the rock star treatment earlier in the day in Nashua, where he walked with a few dozen supporters in the pride parade. The Vermont senator was mobbed upon his arrival and posed for selfies with children, a dog and even a lookalike puppet.

Members of IfNotNow, a movement of young American Jews against the Israeli military occupation over Palestinians, posed with Sanders with a sign saying, “Jews Against the Occupation.”

Member Elias Newman said they didn’t get to talk to Sanders about the issue, but said he seemed to have “understood” from the sign.

Later, as Sanders worked the crowd of parade participants, one girl nearly burst into tears with excitement when he brushed by her. Another woman exclaimed, “I touched Bernie’s hand!”