“People tend to lose the nuance in all political discussions,” Hannah Quinn, a student at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota – town motto: “Cows, colleges and contentment” – said about pushback from other liberals she’s received on social media since founding Carls for Hillary in 2015.

But while the polls show Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders neck and neck in this 77-delegate state and outsiders might consider the contest fractious, supporters on both sides of the divide are keen to embody the “Minnesota nice” ethos – which is not meant with a shred of irony.

“Primarily [my friends support] Bernie,” University of Minnesota student and Sanders volunteer Roland Taracks said on Sunday, after returning to Sanders’ St Paul headquarters from several cold hours of door-knocking. “However, there are a few people who do support Clinton and we’ve had great conversations.

“I think it’s really great to even have people my age talking about these really important issues and how they’re going to get done.”

Back at Carleton, where the Carls for Hillary group played host to former Texas state senator Wendy Davis on Sunday night, Raul Noguera-Roth expressed the same pride in his peers’ ability to support different candidates respectfully.

“I’m a [resident assistant] on my floor and a lot of my residents are overwhelmingly Bernie supporters,” he said. “I understand that they have different opinions than me, but I’m willing and able to set that aside and say, ‘This is why I’m supporting Hillary’ and so we’re able still to talk about the issues.

“That’s not happening on the other side of the presidential race – issues-based discussion – it’s more personal attack-based and so I’m really proud that here, at least in my experience, we’ve been able to set aside a lot.”

Davis, one of three Clinton surrogates criss-crossing the state in the days before Tuesday’s caucus, was quick to counsel the students to understand the feelings of Sanders supporters who, though vociferous, may have to swallow their disappointment as Clinton supporters did in 2008.

I was supporting [Clinton] in 2008. And I became a very strong Barack Obama supporter when he won the nomination Wendy Davis

“If it’s Bernie Sanders [who wins the nomination], I can tell you, I will be traveling all of the country to get Bernie Sanders elected,” she said.

Davis, of course, hopes that won’t be necessary.

“I was supporting her in 2008,” she said at a Clinton supporter’s home in Bloomington. “And of course I became a very strong Barack Obama supporter when he won the nomination. But I feel now more strongly than I did back then that she is the right person at the right time: this is the time for her.”

The former state senator, who achieved national prominence with an ultimately unsuccessful filibuster of a Texas abortion bill that is scheduled to be heard before the US supreme court on Wednesday, has been or will be in a number of states on behalf of Clinton, including Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Oklahoma, Kansas, Minnesota and Colorado. Though the majority of voters she spoke to in Minnesota were women, she pointed out that she sees a lot of men on the trail as well and believes Clinton’s platform is not designed to appeal to one side of the gender divide.

“As a woman it’s important to me that we have someone who understands our battles and will be uniquely positioned to champion the things that a lot of women want to see happen in this county,” Davis said. “But she’s so much more than just a woman who cares about women’s issues.”

‘People should hear these ideas’

Sanders supporters have also lined up behind their candidate because of the issues. Phil Khalar-Gibson was helping people find their caucus locations and passing out literature at a Fight for 15 ballot initiative launch on Saturday and the “Rawkus Caucus” – a “non-partisan, family friendly event” which aimed to explain the caucus process – in Minneapolis on Sunday.

He said that while the senator’s opposition to the Iraq war was what first made him pay attention, Sanders’ message “about getting big money out of politics and not letting lobbyists shape the way that bills are written and what bills get passed based on corrupt campaign finance” were what ultimately drove him to volunteer.

“Whether he wins or loses, I thought people should hear these ideas and get inspired,” Khalar-Gibson said at the Rawkus Caucus, as blues music played in the background.

Kyle George Berg, a Rawkcus Caucus attendee sporting a hat that looked like a wolf’s head, was also concerned about the influence of corporations on politics. But he added: “The most import [issue] is to get rid of student debt. No one should have to go into debt for knowledge.”

Berg, who is studying to be a licensed massage therapist and teaches martial arts to children, caucused once before – for Ron Paul in 2008. He thought Paul and Sanders were similar, because “they both speak their minds and they both have great, fantastic ideas”.

At Sanders’ St Paul headquarters, first time phone-banker BH (who asked that his name not be used, as many of his co-workers are extremely conservative) sat in front of an wall of handmade signs. For him, too, Sanders’ ideas were paramount, although he understood that Sanders might not be able to enact them.

“Even if he doesn’t accomplish all of his legislative goals,” BH said, “he’s the only candidate I believe that will bring that conversation [about single-payer healthcare] to light and make it possible to have some of these policies be accepted in future administrations.”

He added: “If we can’t get the conversation started, I’m concerned that those very important topics won’t even be on the radar in future presidencies.”

Andy Scott, who was phone-banking for Clinton in the south St Paul American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) building, was less keen to elect a president because of proposals he or she could never pass. He said he supported Clinton because of her record on LGBT rights and because “she’s presenting a lot of good, pragmatic solutions that I think can sort of help united us”.

Scott cited the Human Rights Campaign’s endorsement of Clinton as key to his decision – as did supporters at an event in St Paul that was attended by Jason Collins, a former NBA player who spent the 2008-2009 season with the Minnesota Timberwolves and in 2013 came out in a first-person essay in Sports Illustrated.

Collins, who attended Stanford University with Chelsea Clinton, has been stumping in early primary states, having played in three that will vote on Super Tuesday, Tennessee, Minnesota and Georgia, during his NBA career.

“I’m such a huge fan of the entire family,” he said, calling Hillary Clinton “so sweet, so warm”.

Collins did not talk a lot about policy, explaining that “people, when it comes to candidates, are always trying to find out more”. That was what he felt most qualified to provide when talking to groups about Clinton.

Collins was speaking to the converted in Minneapolis and St Paul – especially on Saturday night, when he spoke to phone-bankers like like Lyn Burton, who was “Clean for Gene” McCarthy in 1968 because of his anti-war stance and is ordained in the Unitarian Universalist ministry. She volunteered for Clinton in 2008, and said she understands exactly what Sanders supporters may soon have to go through.



“Hillary came back out to Minnesota and met with a bunch of us who had been supporting her early and made an amazing speech to us the bottom line of which was, ‘I am going to support Barack Obama and do everything I can to help him be elected president of the United States and I expect you to do the same. Will you be with me?’”

Burton said there was a little hesitancy among the supporters, but “[Clinton] looked around the room and said ‘Suck it up!’ And we went: ‘OK, if she can do it, we can do it.’”

We can’t let the Bernie supporters be so disappointed that they don’t vote in the general Mara Daly, Clinton supporter

Burton said she and many of the other people she worked with went on not just to vote for Obama, but to volunteer for him in 2008 and 2012.

Other Clinton supporters are equally conscious that it will be important, if they win, to keep Sanders supporters engaged.

“We can’t let the Bernie supporters be so disappointed that they don’t vote in the general because to not vote is a vote for the Republicans,” said Mara Daly, a Carleton student who supports Clinton.

But maybe, despite the oft-stated concerns that Sanders supporters might stay home in November if their candidate isn’t on the ballot, Minnesotan Clinton supporters need not worry too much. Though many Sanders supporters with whom the Guardian spoke had not previously volunteered for a candidate or a cause, every one planned on voting in the general election regardless – and many had positive things to say about Clinton.

Mac Leydon, a Sanders “super volunteer”, said his support did not in any way come from a place of animosity towards Clinton.

“Initially when the whole process was getting started, obviously a female president, [I was] super supportive of the idea,” he said. “[My friends and I] loved some of the stuff that was happening with Hillary.

“But once Bernie announced and most of my friends started reading up on the issues, it was pretty clear who we stood with.”

At the Rawkus Caucus, as supporters of Food Not Bombs passed out smoothies made with solar power, Sanders volunteer Khalar-Gibson said: “I think it’s healthy to have a discussion of where we want the party to go.”

But as Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison, one of a small number of superdelegates to have announced his support for Sanders, explained: “One thing Hillary and Bernie supporters all agree on is that either of the Democratic candidates will be much better than Donald Trump or any of the other Republican candidates.”