On the eve of the South Carolina primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders will be far closer to Charlestown than Charleston.

The Vermont senator is slated to host a rally Friday night in Springfield — his first 2020 campaign appearance in Massachusetts ahead of the state’s March 3 primary. The Bay State is one of 14 that vote on next week’s delegate-rich Super Tuesday (though early voting runs through Friday).

According to an announcement by his presidential campaign Monday night, Sanders will appear at a 7:30 p.m. rally at the MassMutual Center. Doors open to the public event at 6 p.m., and entrance is first come, first serve.


Polls show Sanders, the current leader in Democratic primary delegates, close behind former vice president Joe Biden in South Carolina. And coming off two consecutive primary contest wins in New Hampshire and Nevada, the Sanders campaign has recently made moves to put pressure on fellow Democratic presidential candidate and progressive populist Sen. Elizabeth Warren in her home state.

In their announcement of the event, campaign officials referenced a recent UMass Lowell poll that suggested a tight primary race in Massachusetts.

According to the poll, Sanders received the support of 21 percent of likely voters in the state’s Democratic primary, followed by Warren at 20 percent, Pete Buttigieg at 15 percent, Joe Biden at 14 percent, Mike Bloomberg at 12 percent, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 9 percent. However, given the poll’s relatively wide margin of error, the six candidates were technically shown to be in a statistical tie. The poll was also conducted before Warren’s debate performance last week.

The Sanders campaign recently opened its third Massachusetts office in nearby Holyoke and says it knocked on more than 50,000 doors in the state over this past weekend. They also announced a slate of new endorsements Monday morning mostly from local elected officials in Massachusetts, predominantly in the Boston area.


“Our momentum in the Bay State only continues to grow,” Trip Yang, the campaign’s state political director, said in a statement.

During his first presidential bid in 2016, Sanders narrowly lost the Massachusetts primary to Hillary Clinton, but won the vast majority of the state’s more rural western communities. His first rally in Massachusetts of that race was also held at the MassMutual Center in Springfield in front of a reported crowd of close to 6,000.