The Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns were out in force Friday night for the start of the Kansas Democratic Party's state convention in Topeka.

Topeka ? Supporters of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were out in full force Friday as the Kansas Democratic Party opened its state convention in Topeka, one week ahead of the March 5 Kansas presidential caucuses.

Both campaigns had reception rooms at the downtown Topeka hotel where the convention is being held, and both were busy trying to line up support and prepare their activists for what to expect when the caucuses roll around.

“I’ve been meeting with people who are volunteers in every congressional district. I’ve met people from multiple Senate districts, and what’s cool about our organization is that we have organizers stretched from Kansas City to Dodge City,” said Lauren Brainerd of Wichita, state director of the Clinton campaign.

The Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns were out in force Friday night for the start of the Kansas Democratic Party's state convention in Topeka.

Steve Robinson, a Lawrence activist for the Sanders campaign, said there is just as much enthusiasm building up for the Vermont senator’s campaign.

“On the Bernie side, you’ve got people who are talking revolution, not in a violent sense of course, but at the ballot box, and more than that, beyond the ballot box, citizen activism,” he said.

Robinson predicted a big turnout on March 5, especially in Douglas County with its large population of voters under age 35, a key age group that has turned out in big numbers to support him in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

So far in the primaries, Clinton and Sanders are locked in a close race when it comes to actual votes. But Clinton is far ahead in the delegate count, having already secured 453 “superdelegates,” while Sanders has lined up only 20.

The total delegate count so far, according to the New York Times, is 505 for Clinton and 71 for Sanders. It takes 2,383 to win the nomination, and 37 are up for grabs in the Kansas caucuses.

Delegates to the state convention will get to hear from Clinton and Sanders surrogates during the party’s Washington Days banquet at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

Former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and former Texas State Sen. and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, both Clinton supporters, are scheduled to speak at the banquet. The Sanders surrogate hadn’t been officially announced by Friday evening.

Also speaking at the banquet will be former Democratic Congressman Dan Glickman of Wichita, who was first elected to Congress 40 years ago this year and served in the 4th District seat until 1995. He is now a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center, as well as vice president and executive director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program.