Sen. Bernie Sanders appears to be surging in Iowa in the final days before the caucuses there launch the nation’s 2020 presidential voting -- and Sen. Elizabeth Warren is taking the long view.

Halfway across the country from Iowa, Warren’s Oregon campaign showcased its organizational prowess, announcing Tuesday that it had secured 13 endorsements from elected officials around the state, including Speaker of the House Tina Kotek.

Oregon’s primary isn’t until May 19, late in the front-loaded schedule. Sanders won the state’s Democratic presidential contest four years ago, easily beating eventual nominee Hillary Clinton.

This time around, Warren is hoping to be the beneficiary of Oregon’s large progressive vote.

“I’m grateful to have the support of longtime progressive champions who have fought to make Oregon a better place for working families,” Warren said in a statement from the campaign. “We’re in this fight to create big, structural change -- and that means building a movement that makes our country work for everyone.”

Beyond Kotek, the other Oregon Democrats backing Warren are:

Oregon Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, state representatives Barbara Smith Warner, Julie Fahey, Karin Power, Andrea Salinas, Diego Hernandez, Alissa Keny-Guyer and Carla Piluso, and state senators Jeff Golden, Shemia Fagan, Michael Dembrow and Sara Gelser.

“We’re endorsing Sen. Warren today because we’re inspired not only by her vision for our country, but by her plans to make that vision a reality,” the politicians said in a joint prepared statement.

Warren, from Massachusetts, and Vermont’s Sanders are considered the most progressive candidates in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. And so conventional wisdom has it that if one of them is going to become the party’s standard-bearer, the other must fall by the wayside -- long before the Oregon primary.

Sanders leads in the latest Iowa polling, with Warren -- along with former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg -- just behind.

But the caucuses in the cornfields remain fluid, especially with Warren landing the Des Moines Register’s endorsement last week.

“Many of her ideas aren’t radical,” the Register stated in its endorsement. “They are right.”

The newspaper praised Warren for seeking “fair markets, with rules and accountability. She wants a government that works for people, not one corrupted by cash.” The Register’s editorial board added the caveat that a few of her plans, such as her proposal to tilt corporate governance toward rank-and-file workers, “go too far.”

Sanders’ plans, of course, tend to go even further to the left. The long-time independent, who popularized the Medicare-for-All proposal that Warren supports, calls himself a “democratic socialist.”

Warren and Sanders are seeking to wrest control of the Democratic race from the leading centrist candidate, Biden, who has consistently led in national polls since joining the contest last spring.

Twelve candidates remain in the race for the nomination, including Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer.

-- Douglas Perry

@douglasmperry

Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.