DENVER—The Clintons have a history of losing here in Colorado—Bill Clinton lost the 1992 caucuses to Jerry Brown, and Hillary Clinton lost them to Barack Obama in 2008. 

That’s not the only reason Bernie Sanders’ campaign is making a stand here on Super Tuesday March 1. The state is also the Rocky Mountain linchpin for his March strategy, when Sanders hopes to run the table in a series of caucus states.

Sanders and his aides are confident that the four Western caucuses in March, here in Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, are prime territory for his populism among the most committed of party activists who show up for those votes.

While his campaign thinks he’ll continue to trail among African-American voters who will probably give Hillary Clinton a sweep of the Southern primaries, his aides contend he’s got much better chances with the Latinos who make up a greater percentage of the voters in the West.

Joan Kato, Sanders' state director for Nevada's first-in-the-West caucus, said she feels he's resonating because of the same income inequality and Wall Street issues that are resonating elsewhere in the country. But she's confident the increased diversity in her state and Colorado will work to the senator's advantage, not his disadvantage, as the Clinton campaign is projecting.

"This is diversity. This is America," Kato said, noting the 12 offices and 100 employees she oversees. "Him doing well here reflects that he understands and people from this area of this country really are drawn to his message." 

Saturday night, Sanders and Hillary Clinton will have their first direct face-off in Colorado, here at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner. Fitting right in with the dynamic of the whole primary race so far, Sanders is hosting a rally ahead of the dinner, while Colorado operatives said they expect Clinton to own the room, thanks in part to filling with members of the Democratic party’s establishment who are supporting her. 

This time around, the Clinton campaign is looking to this state as the first big test of learning from their wipe out in the caucuses against Obama eight years ago. In 2008, Obama proved it was possible to win the nomination while losing nearly all of the delegate-rich primary states. This time, the Clinton campaign is looking to play hard here -- even if that means investing heavily only to pick up some delegates and ultimately losing the state.

Already, the campaign has dumped about a third of its Iowa field staff in Colorado, according to a Democratic source on the ground with close ties to the Clinton campaign. It has opened about 10 field offices around the state.

But for the Sanders campaign, a win in Colorado is central to its mission to tie or beat Clinton on Super Tuesday and ride that into more wins in the West. Sanders is hoping that’ll start with a strong showing in the Nevada caucuses Feb. 20, drawing on many of the same sorts of voters in places like Reno, where Sanders started the day Saturday, to counter Clinton’s expected strength in Las Vegas.

Sanders is hoping that finishing a close second in South Carolina the Saturday before the burst of March 1 primaries will damage the Clinton narrative and give them the momentum to power him through Super Tuesday.

After defying predictions and early polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, “it looks like they may have to rewrite their thought process in this state as well," Sanders said to cheers at his morning rally in Reno. 

Colorado, though, holds a special place in the minds of the Sanders campaign—a rally in Boulder in October that drew thousands, including college students camped out on blankets, was one of the first times they felt a movement taking shape.

But the Clinton campaign has been working on Colorado for months to head them off. This was the first state outside of the early nominating states to get a state director, with Brad Komar, who managed Gov. John Hickenlooper's 2014 re-election campaign, on the ground there organizing since last fall. Gabe Rodriguez, a former economic policy adviser to Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, joined more recently as a Latino outreach director.

They tell the young staffers that they’re playing to win. The more realistic goal, Clinton allies on the ground acknowledge, is to block Sanders’ influence and diminish his ability to pick up delegates, as they say they’re trying to do in all of the March caucus states.

“In 2008, there were a lot of people who just showed up at the caucuses to support then-Senator Obama who no one knew about and they overwhelmed the caucuses,” said Colorado Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette, who’s backing Clinton. “This year, they learned they need to organize the caucuses.”

Hickenlooper, as well as Sen. Michael Bennet, DeGette and fellow Reps. Ed Perlmutter and Jared Polis all sit on Clinton's leadership council in Colorado, along with former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.

As a sign of its commitment to a state Clinton basically tuned out of eight years ago, the campaign held more than three dozen organizing events around Colorado this week, including phone banks and meetings, a campaign aide said. And it's sending surrogates: Chelsea Clinton is campaigning in Colorado next week, and Hickenlooper’s already participated in an event in Arapahoe County.

The campaign has also been tuning into local issues, issuing a statement from top policy adviser Maya Harris on the Colorado legislature’s personhood bill, and a bill to criminalize abortion doctors. But they’re still aiming for the biggest hits on Sanders to come from national issues, such as immigration reform and gun control. 

While some insist the Vermont senator’s record opposing the strictest gun control measures may be a better fit here than elsewhere, the Clinton campaign continues to believe Sanders will have a problem in Colorado on his gun record—from Columbine to the Aurora movie theater, this is a state devastated by mass shootings.

That’s all missing the point, according to several Democratic operatives on the ground, who say that Sanders will be strong here.
“I don't think people responding to his message are worrying about specifics," said one Clinton backer in Colorado, "they're motivated by a vision.”

Sanders campaign strategist Tad Devine said he’s feeling confident that the senator will run strong in the West, and with Latinos. As to what makes him confident about landing the support of Latinos, who backed Clinton heavily in the 2008 primaries, Devine cited the Field Poll in California—a state where neither candidate’s campaigned, but the population is exceptionally diverse and heavily Latino.

Sanders was at 3.5 percent there in May, and at the beginning of January was at 35 percent.

“How did that happen?” Devine said. “I think when they found out that he’s the son of an immigrant who came to this country speaking very little English, they found out about his ideas and policies—particularly on education and health—I think it really cut through. They’re coming to him very quickly.”