Even the Wall Street Journal is paying attention:
The 73-year-old Mr. Sanders is particularly popular among young voters, who say they are drawn to his grandfatherly image. Joe Thoms, a 22-year-old who recently graduated from Central College in Pella, Iowa, said Mr. Sanders is his top pick for the Democratic nomination, as well as that of his friends, based on his directness and enthusiasm.
A question for the bare-bones Sanders campaign is whether it can capitalize on this enthusiasm and provide more than a rhetorical challenge to the Clinton campaign.
At one event in Iowa on Sunday, a young Sanders supporter was having a hard time figuring out how he could help. “I would love to work for the campaign,” said Levi Grenko, a 24-year-old social-media manager who lives in Centerville, Iowa. “But I don’t know how.”
Team Sanders is trying to fix that. At events, a Sanders aide has been urging people to text a certain number—a way for the campaign to provide information about events and capture details about Sanders supporters.
Jeff Weaver, the campaign manager, conceded growing pains. “We started this campaign a month ago,” he said. “This was not a situation where you had a campaign-in-waiting that was hiding inside a super PAC or a nonprofit or a think tank.”
Money has been coming in at a healthy clip, enabling the campaign to hire more staff. The campaign says its goal is to raise up to $50 million, about half what Mrs. Clinton wants to raise for the Democratic primary.
By the end of the month, the Sanders campaign said it expects to have about $10 million on hand.
