YOUNGSTOWN — While U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders is the current Democratic presidential front-runner, he has no paid staff in Ohio, which has its primary March 17.

But that hasn’t deterred Bernie 2020 Mahoning Valley, a group of his local supporters who have spent months campaigning for him.

“We’re not paid staffers, we’re all volunteers,” said Chuckie Denison of Craig Beach, one of the group’s founding members and a Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention from the 13th Congressional District. “We’re not in direct contact with the campaign. It’s not about waiting for the campaign to come. We have a core base of volunteers.”

The group turned the basement at 3804 Glenwood Ave., a home on the city’s South Side, into an unofficial campaign headquarters, Denison said. The group uses the house for phonebanking to call voters in support of Sanders and to have meetings, he said. The group also goes door to door in Valley neighborhoods urging people to back Sanders.

“It’s a grassroots movement and we’re growing,” Denison said. “Every day, we get more and more supporters.”

As for Sanders support in the area, Denison said: “A lot of people were on the fence. People are waiting to see what happens. If he continues to do well (in other states), I think he’ll do well here also. The Mahoning Valley has a lot of Bernie supporters. I have a lot of high expectations for him in the Mahoning Valley.”

Denison spent 23 years working for General Motors, retiring for health reasons March 25, 2018, from the now-closed Lordstown Assembly plant.

When Sanders made a campaign stop April 14, 2019, at Lordstown High School, Denison addressed the audience, talking about the plant closing, its impact on families and criticizing President Donald Trump, a Republican, for giving GM $700 million in federal contracts and not doing enough to save the Lordstown facility.

In response to Denison’s statements, Sanders said GM showed “contempt” for the local community.

“We want those people who get federal contracts to have respect for working people and will give contracts to those large and small employers who pay their workers a living wage,” Sanders said.

GM idled the Lordstown plant in March 2019 — and sold it in November 2019 to Lordstown Motors Corp. to build electric pickup trucks — and announced in December that it, along with South Korea’s LG Chem, planned to invest $2.3 billion to build an electric vehicle battery-cell manufacturing plant in the area that would employ about 1,000 workers. The companies signed a purchase agreement in January for 158 acres adjacent to the former GM plant.

Werner Lange of Newton Falls — a Sanders delegate at the 2016 Democratic National Convention who could be a delegate this year if Sanders garners enough votes in the 13th Congressional District — said the Vermont senator “has awoken a sleeping giant” and is well on his way to capturing the Democratic nomination. Lange is challenging state Rep. Gil Blair, D-Weathersfield, for the Ohio House 63rd District’s Democratic nomination.

Other Democratic presidential candidates have operations in Ohio.

The largest is multibillionaire Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, with 91 staff members in Ohio and about 10 field offices, including one in downtown Youngstown. Bloomberg is the only Democratic presidential candidate with an official office in the Mahoning Valley.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., have paid staff in Ohio, but no one is specifically assigned to the Valley.

Buttigieg announced late Sunday that he was suspending his campaign. Billionaire activist Tom Steyer ended his campaign on Saturday.

dskolnick@tribtoday.com