Heidi M. Przybyla

USA TODAY

Nearly a year before Hillary Clinton announced her presidential bid, she arrived at an Iowa steak fry to thousands of supporters wearing “Ready for Hillary” buttons lined up for barbecue next to antique tractors and bales of hay.

The “Ready for Hillary” super PAC was a new innovation, a grass-roots organization for a candidate-in-waiting — independent of Clinton herself and free from contribution limits. “There was some element of skepticism among DC know-it-alls, and they were proven very wrong,” said Tracy Sefl, a former senior adviser to the group.

On Monday night, the Associated Press said that Clinton had secured the support of enough superdelegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination when the party convenes at its July convention in Philadelphia. The announcement came on the eve of the last round of state primaries.

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For all of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ grass-roots thunder, Clinton’s massive volunteer operation is a crucial piece of the story behind how she will become the nation's first female major-party presidential nominee.

It's a lesson that included following Barack Obama’s 2008 playbook: maximizing vote totals in all 50 states, including in caucus states like Wyoming that she lost; surrounding herself with advisers who kept a lid on the drama and infighting that plagued her previous run; and by giving command performances at critical junctures in the campaign, including at the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas in October and in her testimony before a special House Benghazi committee later that month.

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Despite an early narrative that likened her run to a coronation, the candidate was more skeptical of the road ahead. Shortly after she left the State Department in 2013, Rep. Xavier Becerra, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, invited her to speak to his members.

“I thought for sure she’d come because we were already seeing ‘Ready for Hillary’ stickers and the speculation was rampant,” said Becerra, now among her potential vice presidential picks. “She took a pass,” and “I thought, 'OK, this is really someone taking some time to think things through.'”

“She probably guessed right that this was not going to be a cakewalk,” he said.

A different approach, message

The anchor that grounded her through an unexpectedly stormy primary was her grass-roots network of volunteers.

Two years before she announced, dozens of volunteers occupied half a floor in a Northern Virginia office building working with technology and digital strategists to build an email list of millions of supporters in all 50 states. A bus with a picture of her emblazoned on its backside traveled thousands of miles, to college campuses, football games and gay pride parades.

This infrastructure would be, through a series of legal transfers, absorbed into Clinton’s campaign, and it’s the biggest tactical change from her failed 2008 strategy. Within the first two weeks after her official launch in April 2015, there were staff in all 50 states and hundreds of organizing meetings taking place.

As Sanders' campaign gained steam, the opening contests looked like potential losses for the candidate whose nomination was once thought inevitable. The Vermont senator's neighboring New Hampshire looked particularly difficult, and Iowa was a caucus state, in which only the most committed and enthusiastic party faithful tend to participate, an advantage for Sanders.

While Sanders ultimately won virtually all caucus states, Clinton’s team relied on a grass-roots network — namely a training program for precinct captains and technology including a smartphone application identifying winnable delegates — to pull out critical wins in two of them: Iowa and Nevada.

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Clinton’s team also made an important decision to organize even in caucus states Sanders was sure to win. In Wyoming, her team hit Native American reservations and helped supporters caucus via absentee ballots, and the two wound up splitting the state’s 14 pledged delegates.

Clinton also took a different approach to emphasizing her potentially historic candidacy.

In 2008, Clinton did not overtly run on women’s issues. This time, they were stitched into every facet of her campaign. “Women for Hillary” was launched on the 20th anniversary of the former first lady’s 1995 Beijing speech in which she proclaimed “women’s rights are human rights.” There was even a marketing component offering regular subscriptions for home deliveries of some of Clinton’s favorite household items and branded products.

“She’s very comfortable playing the woman card, as Trump would say,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster and expert on women candidates.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Clinton was asked whether she appreciates what her nomination means to other women. “My supporters are passionate. They are committed. They have voted for me in great numbers across our country for many reasons," said Clinton. "But among those reasons is their belief that having a woman president will make a great statement, a historic statement about what kind of country we are, what we stand for. It's really emotional."

She also made heavy use of smaller, intimate settings — including with mothers of gun violence survivors — to relay her campaign messages about gun control.

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The approach, which also included showcasing individuals other than herself in paid advertising, contrasts with eight years ago, said Mo Elleithee, who was then one of her top aides.

“The message was about her,” emphasizing her experience, he said. “It never matched what people were looking for. This time it’s about fighting for you, and that matches this moment.”

Weathering storms, missteps

Her organizational strength probably compensated for some tactical misjudgments and shortcomings that fueled a fierce nominating battle, including the lack of a clear economic message, which Sanders and her Republican challenger, Donald Trump, emphasized from the outset.

While the 2008 race may have been tighter in terms of the delegate race, the 2016 contest also took on a harsher tone, including charges that she was bought and paid for by Wall Street, and even the suggestion that she was unqualified for the job.

Errors included pushing the Democratic National Committee to limit the number of debates. Clinton ultimately fared well in the debates, and headlines following her first performance at the October Las Vegas debate said she “crushed it.”

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Yet that initial decision to limit the number of debates set ablaze a narrative that Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was trying to rig the election for Clinton, feeding hard feelings that now present the candidate’s biggest crisis as she attempts to court Sanders' voters. “It’s going to be problematic,” said Lake. “There could be turnout issues, for sure.”

Some Clinton allies say the campaign also lacked an overall strategist coordinating her message, akin to Obama’s David Axelrod in 2008. Clinton rolled out detailed policy proposals, from tackling autism to creating infrastructure jobs, and used different slogans, including “Fighting for You,” “Breaking Down Barriers” and “I’m with Her.”

In contrast, Sanders stubbornly stuck to the same message in virtually every speech, even against the advice of some of his closest advisers, highlighting a “rigged” economy and Wall Street greed. It worked, as Sanders drew record crowds across the nation while Clinton’s campaign struggled with a media narrative about an “enthusiasm gap.”

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Yet despite any missteps, the campaign largely steered clear of the sniping, infighting and media leaks that hurt morale eight years prior. Clinton replaced her stable of top advisers, like media maestro Phil Singer, known for his confrontational tone, with a new bench led by campaign manager Robby Mook.

And with the exception of a few outbursts, including denouncing “sexist” “Bernie Bros” in New Hampshire and an altercation with a Black Lives Matter protester, Bill Clinton did not hurt her the way he did eight years ago by angering black voters in South Carolina.

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“They’re working towards a common purpose in a way that our campaign didn’t in 2008,” said Elliethee.

As she pivots to a general election campaign, outside advisers are pushing her to go further. Polling shows Clinton’s main challenges remain voter skepticism of her trustworthiness and likability and she rarely allows for off-the-script media interactions.

A recent report by the State Department's inspector general may have solidified her low numbers on trustworthiness, and her initial refusal to apologize for maintaining a private server as secretary of State can be counted among her campaign's missteps.

Yet she can still strengthen her economic message. Much as in the battle with Sanders, finding her own populist voice is a central challenge in the fight against Trump, whose outsider message to "Make America Great Again” vanquished a field of 16 GOP rivals and vaulted him ahead of her in polling on questions related to the economy and dealing with Wall Street and trade.

“She has to have an overall arc or narrative that unites this all,” said Lake. “It can be ‘putting families first’ or a variety of things,” she said, but “it has to be articulated as a big narrative."

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Her campaign’s taken a number of steps to address the likability issue, including assigning a video crew to follow her around full time to capture spontaneous interactions with voters.

Still, those poll numbers remain problematic.

“Elections are about people, they are not about policy. The biggest problem Hillary Clinton faces is, she’s the most famous person in the world who no one really knows,” said Elleithee. "Everyone thinks they know her but no one really does. That is her challenge, let people get to know her.”