“They might have the money, but we have the people” is something I’d often tell Bernie Sanders volunteers in Iowa before sending them out to knock on doors. Canvassing is the most important thing you can do as a volunteer on an electoral campaign, but you still need some inspiration to get out there in the thick of Iowa’s caucus season, when temperatures are often in the single digits.

After all was said and done, our supporters knocked on almost a million doors in Iowa — a state with a total population of 3 million and a Democratic caucus turnout of about 180,000 — and the campaign managed to eke out a popular-vote victory. Sanders mobilized something like ten thousand volunteers across the country to hit the pavement in early states, a feat that none of his rivals came close to matching.

We had a tremendous manpower advantage — yet Joe Biden ultimately prevailed in many states where he lacked any real field presence.