NEWTON, Iowa _ Matthew Cox arrived at an Elizabeth Warren event here unsure of who he would support in the state's upcoming caucuses, indicating he was still deciding among four Democratic presidential candidates: Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang and Warren.
That made him a prime target for Liv Ellis.
Ellis, a young clipboard-wielding staffer sporting a nose-ring, orange jacket and whitewashed denim, approached Cox before the Massachusetts senator even took the stage inside a refurbished Maytag building. Ellis explained she was once a Sanders supporter herself, and gently noted that on Buttigieg, "the main difference is how they get their money."
Cox made clear he wasn't going to make up his mind on the spot, but walked away impressed by her case.
"She was very good," he said. "The only negative thing she said was about Pete's high-dollar fundraisers."
This is Warren's famed Iowa organization at work. Her team isn't the largest in the state, yet even rival campaigns privately herald its early scale, intensity and deep community connections. A band of 150 staffers like Ellis, spread out over 26 offices, has served as the steady, trusted oar for a campaign that's experienced it's fair share of turbulence over the last year.
Now, less than two weeks from the lead-off Iowa caucuses, Warren's vaunted political machinery is under pressure to prove it can help engineer an Iowa comeback _ especially with the candidate stuck in Washington for the Senate's impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
Capitalizing on thousands of one-on-one conversations and relationships with undecided and persuadable caucus-goers _ accounting for about 60% of the state's electorate in the latest Des Moines Register/CNN poll _ will be vital in determining an outcome that most Iowa Democrats anticipate will be razor close. And no major candidate has been doing it longer _ or is more dependent on it _ than Warren.
"The biggest advantage I think they have is familiarity, because they've been here the longest," said Peter Leo, the Carroll County Democratic Party chairman who has endorsed Warren. "They've just built a lot of goodwill with people,"
"The Warren staffer is always around. Whenever we have an event or a county party meeting, he's there," Leo added, referring to the Warren campaign's local county staffer. "Whenever I need to talk to him, he's in the office. He's just ubiquitous."
After Tom Steyer's nearly $14 million investment, Sanders and Buttigieg have poured the most money into Iowa TV ads, each spending more than $9 million to date. That significantly outpaces Warren, who has spent less than $6 million, according to data supplied by tracking firm Advertising Analytics.
But Warren's campaign has always believed that sustained face-to-face contacts would turn out to be more powerful inside a caucus, where attendees vote by physically moving to a corner of a room filled with their neighbors.
Sanders boasts the biggest Iowa operation with more than 250 paid staff and over 20 offices. Buttigieg has scaled up to more than 170 staffers in more than 30 offices since his summer surge. Joe Biden counts more than 150 staffers in 28 offices. But Warren's team is widely credited for dominating field organizing early, even without the candidate's presence.
"If you had been on the Iowa Democratic Party website the last six or eight months and looked at events going on around the state, it was 90% Warren events," said John Norris, a longtime party activist who has endorsed Warren. "No one else was doing that. Since last spring, they've been moving without the ball."
That omnipresence was on full display in Newton, where a flood of staffers greeted nearly every person who had braved a messy snowstorm to see Warren. Her staff wouldn't discuss the specific tactics they're employing, but interviews with more than a dozen Iowa Democrats and observations at multiple events reveal that while the campaign has dispensed formal guidance and talking points, organizers have a significant level of autonomy at the local level.
Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan will serve as a Warren precinct captain in Iowa City, where she is depending on a surge of reliably progressive voters. His team has knocked so many doors, he's beginning to confront undecided caucus-goers for the fifth or sixth time.
"Last night, we just had a conversation and we both just laughed," he said. "Nothing has changed. I'm still pushing Warren and she's still unsure. 'I'll talk to you next week,' I said."
On Monday, Sullivan joined Warren organizers to hash out how to best woo supporters of candidates who aren't expected to meet the viability threshold in his precinct. Caucus rules dictate that if a candidate fails to reach 15 percent, he or she is deemed unviable for delegates, and their supporters are free to choose a second option.
Because of this quirk, known as "realignment," Warren organizers talked through how to address supporters of Biden, Yang and Klobuchar, each who may fall short of 15% in his liberal precinct.
According to Sullivan, they settled on the following strategy: Women backing Warren should approach Klobuchar supporters to say they could still back a female candidate by coming aboard. Older Warren supporters would approach Biden fans, with the aim of allaying fears that Warren would blow up the entire government system. And younger Warren troops would court Yang's diehards, reminding them that their candidate is largely aligned with Warren's worldview on an economy that's not working.
One hard and fast rule for all interactions: Don't engage in heated arguments over policy.
"You don't necessarily want it to be a pep rally because that can turn people off," Sullivan said. "But some of this comes down to the interpersonal, like, 'Look, I took care of your dog for six months, so come my way.'"
During last week's Des Moines debate when Warren included Klobuchar as the only two on stage who have never lost an election, most observers saw it as play to highlight the power of women in politics. But Zach Wahls, a state senator from Coralville who has endorsed Warren, also viewed it as a strategic signal to Iowans.
"I think there's a reason Warren grouped herself with Amy the other night," Wahls said. "She's a lot of people's second candidate. And with there being so many candidates in the race, this is different from 2016 and even 2008. Second choice is going to count for a lot."
Warren's top aides have long forecasted a January 2020 scenario that is currently unfolding: A scrambled race featuring multiple candidates within a few percentage points of each other.
After leading Iowa polls this past fall by as many as 8 points, Warren is now a decided underdog. Her steady summer rise attracted scrutiny and attacks on her Medicare for All position, which she eventually refined to a public option with a long transition period to universal government insurance. But as she was devoting time to detailing the cost and explaining the change, a Buttigieg TV ad blitz went almost entirely unanswered, and progressives began drifting back toward Sanders, who bounced back from a heart attack.
Still, Warren has shown resilience. An average of the last three reputable Iowa surveys have her deadlocked with Sanders for second place and trailing Biden by 4 points. While Warren's campaign refuses to play the expectations game, they realize that the magnitude of an Iowa victory would be that much greater now because it's so unexpected.
"Iowa's not about the delegates; it's about the momentum. Especially with all of the stories of her slipping and not doing well," said a former top Iowa aide to a rival Democratic candidate no longer in the race. "If she walks away with a win, shit, there's the momentum."
On the other hand, if Warren finishes significantly behind the winner in third or fourth place, the questions about her electability that have trailed her the entire campaign will only inflame. If she couldn't win the state where she built the best organization, where can she?
"She's still very much in the running. The support leveled off, the momentum just kind of plateaued ... but they have a big footprint and that helps," said Chris Hall, a state representative from Sioux City who just endorsed Klobuchar. "They're working every precinct. That can be the difference between beating expectations or hitting a little above your weight."
At the Maytag building in Newton, the sheer volume of Warren staffers rivaled the total number of attendees who came to hear her speak. Local resident Blake Miller got his ticket drawn to ask Warren a question about health insurance.
"Sometimes I wonder, the further-to-the-left people, the electability," he said afterward.
He skipped Warren's famed photo line, but as he made his way to the door, he was caught by another staffer. Miller had not even completely settled on caucusing for Warren yet, but he was still talked into signing up for a phone banking shift.
