NEW BEDFORD – Former President Clinton — making a surprise Super Tuesday campaign swing through the Bay State for his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton — said a win in the Bay State is "important personally" to the couple .

"I just wanted to end up here," Clinton told a Herald reporter in this working-class seaside city when asked about the eleventh-hour Bay State barnstorming. "I've been working the others, I've been in Texas, in a lot of the other states. But it's important to us, it's important personally."

Clinton is in a close fight in Massachusetts with Democrat Bernie Sanders, senator from the neighboring state of Vermont.

The former secretary of state has a long history here, her husband noted, starting during her days at Wellesley College, and continuing through a primary victory versus Barack Obama in 2008.

"Hillary started out in school here," Clinton said. "Her first Children's Defense Fund work was done here before she went to South Carolina and Alabama. So her whole life in public service in effect began in Massachusetts, and the state's been really good to us. It was always one of my two or three best states when I was president. It gave her a magnificent victory here in 2008, so I hope we can repeat it now."

The former president is making four stops in Massachusetts in a sign of the importance of the state primary today, Clinton campaign staffer Dylan Hewitt told the Herald.

Today, Clinton said, his focus is Super Tuesday, not a general election battle versus the GOP frontrunner Donald Trump

"I haven't given it one thought," Clinton said when asked by a Herald reporter at his second campaign stop of the morning, at the Free Library in Newton, about the campaign's plan is to beat Trump in the fall. "My view is the only time you really get in trouble in an election is when you start thinking about the next one. There'll be plenty of time to think about that. We've got an enormous number of elections still to run and a lot we have to win before she can be the nominee. It's better to focus on that and that's my focus. Let the Republicans sort through all the rest of that stuff. It may look entirely different."

Clinton's first stop was at Holy Name in West Roxbury around 9 a.m., where he was met by Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and greeted by dozens of excited school children lined up on a hill overlooking the church school's parking lot.

The popular former president spent more than 45 minutes outside and in the gymnasium of Holy Name, chatting up voters, posing for pictures and signing autographs before leaving in a motorcade escorted by Boston and state police.

"He was great, I'll tell ya, people absolutely love and adore the president," Walsh told Boston Herald Radio after the surprise visit. "The fact that he came to Boston, and Massachusetts today is exciting because we're never really regarded as a swing state and this is one of the contests that are up in the air."

Hillary Clinton is favored in six of the eleven Super Tuesday Democratic contests today, but faces a tighter race in others, including Massachusetts.

"It was great to have the president here and people were excited to see him," Walsh said. "He bumped in to a Cruz voter, which is kind of funny, and a woman walked up to him and said my 98-year-old mother voted Hillary today but I'm voting for Cruz, and Bill Clinton pulled out of his pocket a piece of paper and a pen and wrote her 98-year-old mother a handwritten note thanking her for the vote. That's what's today missing in politics today, this retail politics. You really see it missing."

The former president even checked out a bake sale.

"What's good?" Clinton asked parent Kim Cogavin before deciding on cinnamon walnut coffee cake and a cup of joe, and making a donation to the 6th Grade class field trip to Maine.

With Walsh volunteering to serve as photographer as his famous friend was mobbed by fans asking for selfies, a beaming Clinton told one man who thanked him for the Super Tuesday campaign stop, "This is my day job now. I love it."

When a woman asked for a photo, Clinton said, “As long as we’re not violating any election laws.”

Most voters greeted Clinton with a “Hi, How are you?” or “So glad to see you.” One said “I voted for her already,” according to a pool report, and another said, "“the secretary is going to do very well here and across the commonwealth.”

The former president greeted one small child with a “Hi, beautiful," signed a voter’s Hillary sign and said “thank you," "it's an honor to meet you," and "bless you" to voters.

“I just bumped into the president!" one voter exclaimed. "It was awesome.”

One woman told Clinton, “We’re going to get this for her.”

Clinton, wearing a brown tweed jacket, blue dress shirt and red tie, also spent time high-fiving dozens of children who gathered on a hill outside the school to see him after he left the polling place shortly after 10 a.m.

"When he saw the kids he just lit up, the kids were screaming, just a great opportunity," Walsh recalled shortly afterward on Herald Radio. "You learn about world's history and you learn about presidents in school, but for those kids to be able to say that President Clinton was at their school and shook their hand and took a picture with them, it's a great opportunity for them."

One man, holding a Trump sign, yelled out, “Tell them about Planned Parenthood, Bill.”

Clinton continued to wave and shake hands, and he kissed an older women on the top of her head. He got in his SUV and stuck his head out the window, waving, as he left.

Flanked by several Secret Service agents, Clinton declined to talk to reporters at the West Roxbury event.

In New Bedford this afternoon, Clinton supporters lined police tape leading to a polling location near Buttonwood Park awaiting the president. One man held a sign that read, "NASCAR Fans Support Hillary."

Standing at the center of the high-spirited crowd, Clinton addressed fans with a megaphone, and sought to evoke nostalgia for economic prosperity during his tenure.

"We can do that again, we can grow together, we can all rise together again, and Hillary's way to do it is to build ladders of opportunity," Clinton said. "Rise together, that's what we're going to do, with your help."

Under a bright blue sky, the president told those gathered, "There are a lot of issues in this election, but at the bottom of all of them is how do we get this country back to shared prosperity."

And he added: "Let me just remind you, when you hear all this back and forth, there's one thing that's indisputable. We've had it exactly one time in 50 years, when I had the honor of serving. We grew the economy from the middle up and the bottom up."

Margaret Kennedy, 58, was giddy as she clutched a Hillary doll.

"Hillary Clinton is my American hero," she beamed. "I've looked up to her for a very long time."

Kennedy said a Clinton win would be "one big step for womankind."

Some protesters and Sanders supporters gathered at the intersection where Clinton was due to enter, and at least one loud debate broke out between the camps.

One man held a sign that read, "Let us not forget Hillary got paid off by the big pharmaceutical industry to stop free insurance."

A rep from the New Bedford mayor's office reminded sign-toting crowds to stay 150 feet from the polling place in accordance with legal limits on campaign activity.

In the Bay State, 91 delegates are up for grabs – one of the larger Super Tuesday hauls.

"It is demonstrative of how important Massachusetts is," Congressman Stephen Lynch said on Herald Radio this morning, referring to the last-minute Clinton appearances. Bill Clinton has "really has a way of synthesizing the arguments, he's a tremendous speaker, and he's got some real connections with the labor unions and can motivate some people, get them out on the street, and that will all accrue to Hillary's benefit today."

Bill Clinton also stumped for his wife at a late-night rally in Worcester yesterday.

Polls opened at 7 a.m. today in the Bay State and will remain open until 8 p.m. Across the country, 11 states have primary contests today.

Mark Garfinkel and Matt Stout contributed to this report.