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In Tuesday’s paper, we look at how the crowds Senator Bernie Sanders is drawing around the country help him in Iowa.

Like Mr. Sanders’s campaign itself, those crowds have bloomed over the summer. But even at the beginning, Mr. Sanders sensed something big was coming.

In Minneapolis, for a campaign event at the end of May, the candidate reported the positive response back to his good friend Richard Sugarman in Burlington, Vt.

“‘We sent out I-don’t-know-how-many invitations for breakfast, a thousand or something, and we got 2,500 responses,’” Mr. Sanders said, according to Mr. Sugarman.

“What are you serving for breakfast?” Mr. Sugarman asked.

“Phil!” Mr. Sanders called over to his longtime field director, Phil Fiermonte, “What are we serving for breakfast?”

“‘Bernard, why don’t you try herring,” Mr. Sugarman suggested. “A lot of these people are Scandinavian.”

Mr. Sanders, apparently confident they weren’t there for the spread, responded, “Maybe bagels.”