COLLEGE PARK, Md. — A few hours before the Democratic debate Tuesday, the Bernie Sanders campaign sent out word that it had organized 4,000 watch parties across the country. It was hard to confirm that number, but Team Sanders did link to a map of the U.S. with a dot marking every party, and there were certainly a lot of dots.

One of those dots was at the University of Maryland. And the watch party wasn’t a dozen people gathered at someone’s house or a small room in a brew pub. Instead, the pro-Sanders group Terps for Bernie, working with co-sponsor the University of Maryland College Democrats, reserved a 500-seat auditorium at the Stamp Student Union and managed to fill about 300. As he has across the country, Bernie got a big turnout.