For Bernie Sanders, there is one potentially important factor that could aid his campaign at Monday’s caucuses – today’s date. This year Iowa is voting on Feb. 1, about a month later than in 2008 and 2012, when the caucuses were held on Jan. 3.
Why is that better for Sanders? Because colleges and universities across the state are past winter break and bustling with students for the spring semester. And poll numbers show that Mr. Sanders owns that segment of the Iowa population. In this weekend’s Des Moines Register poll, Mr. Sanders had 63 percent of the vote among Iowans under 35 years of age.
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Add it together and you see what could be a big advantage for Sanders Monday night.
First, it means the college-age vote is packed into a few centers, and that makes it easier to wrangle and target on Monday night.
That’s a lot of potential votes. The University of Iowa’s student enrollment is about 20 percent of the total in in its home county, Johnson. Iowa State’s enrollment is more than a third of the total population of its home county of Story.
And keep in mind, some of that student population isn’t based in Iowa.









