Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim has a “dirty little secret” — he did not support Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Though he liked many of Sanders’ ideas, he thought that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton was the most pragmatic choice for the Democratic nominee.
Four years later, on the night of the Iowa Caucus, he stood in front of a crowd of ardent Sanders supporters at La Boca, a Mexican restaurant in Middletown, his lapel glinting with a pin featuring the outline of Sanders’ glasses and flyaway hair.
“What we all learned is that for the vast majority of the American people, including people in Connecticut and here in Middletown, they don’t really care what politicians decide is practical. They care about the issues affecting their daily lives: their student loan repayments. The fact that wages are not going up. The fact that we are not responding in any way that meets the measure of the crisis to climate change,” Florsheim said.
From 1,200 miles away, Florsheim and the more than 75 Sanders supporters soaked up the political drama playing out in churches, gyms and auditoriums across the first primary state in the 2020 campaign while on the ground other Connecticut lawmakers mixed it up with Iowa voters themselves.
State Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden worked the “wild” caucus crowd on behalf of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and state Sen. Alex Bergstein and her girlfriend worked as precinct captains for Sen. Amy Klobuchar in a small, rural precinct in Elkhart, Iowa.
“It was one of the most exciting experiences I’ve ever had,” Bergstein beamed after her caucus ended just before 10 p.m.
Results were still pending late Monday night but the excitement in Middletown remained palpable.
For Florsheim, Sanders is the candidate best equipped to address the complex issues facing America today — and to return the White House to Democratic control.
“The way that we’re going to win this election is by turning out a mass popular movement to oppose Donald Trump and fight for progressive politics,” he told the crowd of more than 75 people packed into the back room of the restaurant, where caucus results were projected onto a white sheet, next to a cardboard cutout of Sanders.
Sanders has surged in recent polls and many supporters in Middletown said they were cautiously optimistic that he would come out ahead in Iowa.
“Obviously, Iowa sets the mood,” said Mark Gardner, 28, an engineer and volunteer for the Sanders campaign. “If Bernie does well tonight and in New Hampshire, that’s two for two.”
Others were more fervent in their optimism.
“I’m here supporting Bernie because I have a hammer, I have a bell, I have a song to sing, all over this land!” said Kellin Atherton, a Middletown planning and zoning commissioner. “I’ve got love between my brothers and my sisters all over this land and Bernie is the one who’s gonna lead us there, because it’s not about me, it’s about who?”
“Us!” the crowd screamed back.
The mood was buoyant as supporters chatted, picked up Sanders stickers, and munched on tacos and chicken wings. For Debra Cohen, 68, of Wethersfield, Sanders’ consistency and transparency is what has earned him her support for years.
“I can trust that what he says he stands for is truly what he stands for and not what trends tell him he should say,” said Cohen, a co-founder of CT for Bernie 2020 who was a delegate for Sanders at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
In Elkhart, a small farm community just outside of Des Moines, Bergstein and Nichola Samponaro worked the crowd to support Klobuchar, the moderate Minnesota Democrat, Yale graduate and former prosecutor.
Unlike stories of contentious caucuses during the 2016 campaign, the debates Monday night were congenial, friendly and on the substance of the issues, Bergstein said.
“They were so flattered that we came all the way from Connecticut to Elkhart, Iowa,” she said. “They thought, ‘Oh, well, you probably want to be in downtown Des Moines,’ and we said, ‘No, to be here, truly in the Heartland, in a small, rural community is a privilege.’ It was a true privilege and an incredible experience of democracy happening organically.”
Without any reported results as of 11 p.m., anecdotal descriptions of precinct results painted a scattered picture, said Martin Dunleavy, a longtime party leader and former Democratic National Committee member who is helping coordinate former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign.
“Whatever happens tonight, the Biden campaign has always felt that Iowa and New Hampshire are important, but so are Nevada and South Carolina and, ultimately, South Carolina is where we’re going to break through,” he said. “It’s more representative of the country and Super Tuesday is where we start to climb the ladder.”
Back in Middletown, Gardner took a lull in the evening to tell the crowd about upcoming canvassing opportunities in New Hampshire and Massachusetts.
“Half an hour to Springfield is easy to do, it only takes half a day,” he said. “That is a huge need.”
“HUUUGE!” the crowd yelled back, affectionately imitating Sanders’ accent.
Grayson Sussman Squires, a 21-year-old Wesleyan University junior, said that Sanders has garnered significant support at Wesleyan and he is hopeful that Sanders will gain momentum across the state.
“There’s a ton of wealth inequality in Connecticut alone,” Sussman Squires said. “Here in central Connecticut, in eastern Connecticut, in the areas surrounding Hartford, there’s massive potential for Bernie support because these are working people, these are people who have been affected by globalization, by a changing economy — an unequal economy that seeks to profit the rich.”
Eliza Fawcett can be reached at elfawcett@courant.com. Zach Murdock can be reached at zmurdock@courant.com.
