DUBUQUE, Iowa — After weeks of distant small-town events designed to expand his appeal beyond the college-oriented counties where he’s strongest, Bernie Sanders is now returning his focus to Iowa’s population hubs.

It’s part of an attempt to make good on his pledge that he’ll win the state — but only if there’s a high turnout on Monday. He’s headlining a packed series of large, high-profile rallies designed to fire up his core supporters – and scheduled a string of events that are increasingly star-studded, with scheduled appearances from actress Susan Sarandon, actor Justin Long, professor Cornel West, and, on Saturday night, a concert from the band Vampire Weekend.


It’s the closing gambit in the Vermont senator’s plan to run-up turnout among people who don’t usually caucus -- namely younger voters.

If he can generate enough support in the college towns and more populous cities – like Davenport, Dubuque, Cedar Rapids, and Iowa City, where he’ll be barnstorming this weekend – Sanders might be able to make up for his relative weakness in more rural areas. That explains why his schedule is so geographically concentrated – he’s got no events west of Des Moines -- while his rival Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill Clinton are busy fanning out across the state, including to the largely Republican turf of Council Bluffs and Sioux City on the state’s western border with Nebraska.

“My gut feeling is this is a very, very close election here in Iowa. We will win if the turnout is large. If the turnout is not large, we will be struggling,” Sanders told reporters at a breakfast in Des Moines on Thursday, repeating a version of the standard answer he’s been giving in recent weeks when asked if he will win. “What [Barack] Obama did in 2008 kind of set the mold. That was an extraordinary turnout, I don’t think that’s going to be replicated. [But] if that happened, we would do very, very well."

Bret Nilles, the neutral chairman of the Democratic Party in Linn County — which includes Cedar Rapids — invoked Obama while reviewing Sanders’ strategy, which he said was likely the best plan for a candidate whose support is so concentrated with young voters in college cities.

“Take a look at what happened back in 2008, and Obama won Linn County, 43 to 28 percent for Hillary, and 28 percent for [John] Edwards. I think that was part of Obama’s strategy too, to show really big in Linn County and Johnson County, where the University of Iowa is,” Nilles explained. “And when it comes down to the last few days, it’s a matter of media markets. You’ve got Des Moines and you’ve got Cedar Rapids. If you’re here in person, you’ll get on TV."

But Sanders’ field organization is not as sophisticated as Obama’s operation in 2008. And his eastern Iowa approach is a risky bet for an underdog who’s now running neck-and-neck with Clinton in the state, since delegate allocation is based on precinct, rather than pegged to voter turnout at a precinct. If Sanders can’t get a consistent level of backing in the rest of the state — including in western Iowa, where he’s popular among Democrats but where he’ll be absent in the homestretch – he’ll be unable to surge past Clinton.

“If you’re Sanders, your base is east of I-35,” said Jeff Link, a veteran Des Moines-based strategist who worked for Sen. Tom Harkin before joining Obama’s campaign in 2008, referring to the interstate highway that cuts through the center of Iowa. Still, he said, there’s a danger in spending too much time in the big college towns in the waning days the campaign. “If this does remain really, really close to the end, I think [Clinton’s] strength in precincts in rural counties might tip it her way."

Democrats in the western half of Iowa are accustomed to this kind of closing sprint through the central and eastern part of the state, said Linda Nelson, a Clinton backer who chairs the Democratic Party in Pottawattamie County, which includes Council Bluffs.

Sanders had visited her home base previously in his campaign, Nelson noted, and his staffers there were actively working on prospective caucus-goers on Friday — so it’s not like he’s ceding the territory.

“We out in western Iowa sometimes feel neglected because we have fewer people here. But most of the population is in Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Dubuque, and Davenport. That’s where he needs to be,” said Nelson. “That’s where the majority of delegates are."