When Bernie Sanders takes the stage at a town hall in Madison on Wednesday, it’ll seem like a homecoming of sorts.

Outside of his home state of Vermont, there are few places more familiar with Sanders – or more enamored of him – than Wisconsin’s state capital. For years, he’s been a regular headliner at the big annual Wisconsin progressive festival known as Fighting Bob Fest, where he's typically met with raucous applause. In July, 10,000 screaming fans packed Madison’s Veterans Memorial Coliseum to greet his appearance as a presidential candidate -- a moment the Sanders campaign views as a turning point in his bid for the Democratic nomination, a sign of his transformation into a serious contender.


Now, with Sanders running neck-and-neck in Wisconsin polls with Hillary Clinton, Madison’s Bernie-mania could power him to victory in an April 5 primary that Sanders can’t afford to lose. It’s not only the second-most populous city in the state after Milwaukee, it’s the heart of a congressional district that will provide more delegates than any other in the state.

"Madison will drive up your turnout. Let me put it this way: Peter, Paul, and Mary have shown up at many a political event in Madison," said former Wisconsin Congressman David Obey, speaking to the city’s reputation as a liberal bastion. "There's a reason for that: it's because economic progressives are very strong in that part of the state. You have the university, which is one aspect of the community, but you also have a lot of state employees so you've got a strong labor turnout there as well as a strong university turnout if you can motivate them, as I assume Bernie's trying to do.”

Known for its progressivism – former GOP Gov. Lee Dreyfus famously described the city as “30 square miles surrounded by reality” -- Madison drew national attention in 2011 when more than 70,000 protesters flooded the city and the state capitol building to protest GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s signing of legislation rolling back collective bargaining rights for union workers.

Sanders has tapped into that grassroots energy, most recently at a Madison rally Saturday that drew 8,000 attendees.

"The University [of Wisconsin] has its reputation for being a very progressive-minded community -- the university and the city in general. There is quite a bit of excitement for Sen. Sanders here," said Dane County Democratic Party chairman Michael Basford, a Clinton supporter. "There has always been an undercurrent of attention to income inequality. Quite a bit of attention to the influence of money has in politics. That is a very big deal here."

Sanders has made sure to highlight those themes, as well as to criticize Walker, a bete noire of Wisconsin liberal activists.

"I spoke to more than 10,000 people in Madison about our corrupt political system, our broken economy, and how our political revolution can take back our country from people like the Koch Brothers in the billionaire class," Sanders wrote in a recent fundraising email. "Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and the Republican Party weren't as happy to see me. Governor Walker, who has been helped throughout his career by the Koch Brothers, issued statements against us, and the GOP event put up billboards calling me an ‘extremist.’ Well let's talk about extremism. Scott Walker has attacked the minimum wage, gutted unions, made it harder to vote, and restricted access to abortion. That is extremism."

Many Democrats argue that the farther away from Madison, the stronger Clinton tends to be.



While Sanders appears tailor-made for Madison, Clinton is well-positioned in the state’s largest city, Milwaukee, which is more than twice as big. She’s made seven appearances in the state through Wednesday -- four of them in Milwaukee, where the bulk of the state’s African-American population is concentrated.



"Hillary will probably do much better in Milwaukee because she will do much better with the black vote in that area," Obey said.

A strong Clinton performance in Milwaukee could temper Sanders’ delegate gains elsewhere: The 4th Congressional District, where is centered in Milwaukee, offers 10 delegates -- the second-biggest delegate haul in the state after the Madison-based 2nd district.

The combined delegate take from the two districts is significant enough that the Sanders and Clinton campaigns are competing hard in both of them, if only to limit the other’s gains. Clinton, for example, appeared in Madison on Monday.

"The big prize is [the 2nd district] with 11 delegates," said Sanders state director Robert Dempsey, jokingly referring to the state capital as the ‘The People's Republic of Madison.’ "So what our job is to do is maximize turnout as best we can in the 2nd district and pick up as many delegates but also to turnout as many of our folks as possible in the 4th district to battle for those 10 delegates."

The approach is different in the two districts, Dempsey added.

"It's more of a persuasion game here in the 4th CD and it's more of a turnout game in the 2nd CD," Dempsey said.

