Sanders: I won’t match Obama’s 2008 Iowa turnout
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wants to keep expectations in check with less than a week to go until the Iowa caucuses.
Sanders on Tuesday called then-Sen. Barack Obama’s voter turnout in the 2008 caucuses “extraordinary,” and told supporters not to expect to reach the same level this year.
{mosads}“Obama in 2008 ran a campaign which is really going to stay in the history books. It was an unbelievable campaign. In places they ran out of ballots, as I understand it,” Sanders said, according to BuzzFeed News.
“Do I think that in this campaign that we’re going to match that? I would love to see us do that. I hope we do. But frankly I don’t think we will.“
Sanders has in the past compared his campaign Obama’s, saying his ideas are getting attacked for being “unrealistic” the same way Obama’s were eight years ago.
“His ideas were pie-in-the-sky; he did not have the experience that was needed,” Sanders said at a rally in Iowa last week, referencing what was said about Obama while he was campaigning.
“You know what?” Sanders continued. “People of Iowa saw through those attacks then, and they’re going to see through those attacks again.”
On Tuesday, Sanders told reporters the race was “nip and tuck” close. He said he’s hoping to draw support from all across the state.
“We have some fairly sophisticated people who know about the caucus process here in Iowa,” he said. “We understand that if we get all of our votes in certain communities, it is not going to do for us what has to be done. So we are working hard all over the state of Iowa. The hope is that work will pay off.”
Even though rival Hillary Clinton has “done this once before” and has “a very strong organization,” Sanders said he thinks his campaign can win.
“In the last couple of months, we have gained a whole lot of ground and, again, I think we stand a real chance to create a large voter turnout,” he said.
“I doubt will be as high as 2008 was, but I think that it will be high enough for us to win in Iowa.”
Clinton has a very slight edge in Iowa, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, with 46 percent support to Sanders’ 45.4 percent.
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