Bernie Sanders

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. speaks during the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Conference at Washington Convention Center, Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015, in Washington. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

(Jose Luis Magana)

With three months until the Alabama primary, Bernie Sanders' Democratic presidential campaign is building out staff in the state and is about to open three offices expand his reach in the Heart of Dixie, three members of Sanders' campaign team said Wednesday.

While the campaign conceded that front-runner and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton currently has an advantage over the independent Vermont senator with black voters and established elected officials in Alabama, they were confident the tide will change as more voters become aware of Sanders.

"Once they become familiar with him and get to understand who he is and what he's done for 50 years ... Bernie Sanders is going to be a great option for so many Alabamians," said Kelvin Datcher, the campaign's Alabama state director. He added that Sanders' main platform of addressing income inequality and increasing access to health care would resonate with Alabama primary voters.

Clinton has made two visits to the state while Sanders has yet to make an Alabama appearance. In her stops in Birmingham and Montgomery, Clinton's emphasis was on black voters. At the Alabama Democratic Conference's convention in Hoover, she took aim at the state's voter ID laws and closure of driver's license offices. At an event honoring the 60th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Clinton railed against "mass incarceration" of African Americans, among other issues.

Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver said the campaign is making inroads with black voters, a key constituency in the Alabama Democratic primary, pointing to national polls that show Sanders' support among African Americans on the rise.

"This campaign has reached out and continues to reach out and will continue to reach out the African-American community in Alabama and elsewhere," Weaver said. The Clintons "are a much more known commodity than is Sen. Sanders, but that is changing. And as that changes you'll see more people of all racings moving to Sen. Sanders."

Sanders campaign senior strategist Tad Devine said the primary effort in Alabama and other states would focus on support from the grassroots and those not normally involved in the political process before making a case to so-called superdelegates, or elected officials and party leaders who are automatically given a vote at the nominating convention but are not bound to a candidate, to back the campaign.

"The way for us to best win that kind of support ... is from a position of real strength, having established a national campaign, having a way to fund it without top-dollar fundraising and super PAC fundraising," Devine said.

Datcher said the campaign is about to open three offices in the state, including its headquarters at 1813 4th Ave. North in Birmingham; the other locations will be Montgomery and Selma. The campaign will also be active in every college campus in Alabama, including community colleges, he said.

Outreach to young voters in Alabama includes an online strategy where Facebook, Twitter and Reddit will be used to identify voters likely to vote for Sanders. Datcher said the campaign has already been contacted by Auburn University students who want to push Sanders' message at the college. The campaign is also planning on having a presence at the Birmingham Bowl later this month, when Auburn takes on the Memphis Tigers. The event is expected to have a crowd over 60,000 people.

"We want people to see us face-to-face to know your friends and neighbors are supporters of Sen. Sanders," Datcher said.

The campaign also pointed out that it will be able to leverage its donor list into more fundraising because 820,000 individual contributors have given an average contribution of $30. That means the campaign will not have to look for new donors since nearly all the contributors didn't give the $2,700 maximum.

Of the more than $40 million raised by the campaign, some of those funds will go toward "some type of advertising" in every March 1 primary state, including Alabama.

"We will be in a great position," Weaver said.