Volunteers for Hillary Clinton’s Colorado campaign this week received an education in “how to win a caucus 101,” laying the team’s groundwork for winning votes that won’t be cast for another five months.

“If we win Colorado, that puts Hillary in the best possible position to win the Democratic nomination,” Brad Komar, Clinton’s Colorado campaign lead, said in a call to volunteers Tuesday evening. Komar invited the press to listen in during the call.

Colorado Democrats will hold a caucus on March 1, when votes will be cast at 3,000 precincts across the state. The date falls on Super Tuesday, when Colorado will be among 13 states that will hold caucus or primary votes. (Colorado Republicans caucus the same night but won’t be conducting a presidential preference straw poll, the state GOP has decided.)

In primaries, people just vote. But there is more work involved in mobilizing support for a caucus, where gatherings are held and supporters can voice their support for their preferred candidate in an open setting. Delegates are then chosen to cast votes for candidates at nominating conventions.

To get to that point, it takes extra time to educate volunteers about the caucus process and to organize precinct captains, which is why Komar believes that getting the campaign organized early is critical.

In an interview with The Colorado Statesman following the call, Komar said many Colorado Democrats who have lived in the state for a long time know the caucus system “like the back of their hand.” But others might not have lived here or been eligible to vote in 2008, the last time a competitive Democratic caucus was held here — the same year then-candidate Barack Obama defeated Clinton for the nomination.

Komar, who ran Gov. John Hickenlooper’s successful re-election bid last year, said the organizing effort is just getting started but adds that Clinton has built-in advantages here.

“Hillary has a lot of institutional support in Colorado,” he said. “We have a lot of elected endorsers, just a lot of folks who want to help her. And that’s important in a caucus.”

Clinton will be getting help from members of the team that helped organize Obama’s hugely successful caucus strategy in 2008. Caucuses typically produce vastly lower turnout numbers than primaries, so Obama’s campaign focused on getting reliable supporters to precincts. The strategy allowed Obama to rack up large delegate counts in caucus states.

“The Obama campaign succeeded so well in caucus states in 2008 by getting on the ground early, training their supporters, making sure they had precinct captains in the room on caucus day, making sure they had the supporters and making sure they’re turning them out,” Komar said.

“So that’s the model that we’re (using). We have the advantage that there are Obama folks that learned it in ’08 and are on our team now.”

The groundwork for Clinton’s current chief rival for the Democratic nomination is also starting to be put in place in Colorado.

The campaign for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders “has a significant number of volunteers” who are eager to get to work, said Sanders national campaign spokesman Michael Briggs.

In June, Sanders spoke to an overflow crowd at the University of Denver, a rally the campaign says sparked heavy volunteer interest. Sanders — a socialist and vociferous supporter of economic-equality — has been rising in recent polling in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

The Sanders campaign expects to find success in Colorado.

“We take Colorado very seriously, and we feel we have a good shot there,” Briggs said.

Sanders volunteers are starting to organize their own caucus training. Sanders supporters conducted a training session in Denver on Wednesday.

Briggs said Sanders will be coming back to Colorado soon.

Meanwhile, volunteers are also popping up for a big-name Democratic candidate who hasn’t even entered the race.

Vice President Joe Biden is still grieving the loss of his son, Beau, who died of cancer in May. While the political world waits for Biden’s decision whether to run, his national poll numbers continue to rise.

A group calling itself Draft Biden has taken it upon itself to put a campaign framework in place in early-voting states.

Draft Biden national spokeswoman Sarah Ford said there are about 75 active volunteers who have organized three chapters across the state in downtown Denver, south Denver and northern Colorado.

Right now, Colorado’s Biden base is made up only of volunteers. There is no official campaign staff here like the Draft Biden effort has set up in early-voting states. The campaign, Ford said, is “in the early process of branching out.”

“It’s important to note that we are Draft Biden and we don’t have an actual candidate yet,” she said. “So it’s difficult to compare our efforts to a full national campaign that does have a candidate.”

— Twitter: @VicVela1

Democratic candidates caricatures by Donkey Hotey via Flickr.com.