With the election less than three months away, campaign volunteers across the state are gearing up for a busy season. Democrats rally behind Vice President Kamala Harris, while Republicans hope to bring former President Donald Trump back to the White House.

Representatives from both sides say the intensity at the top of the ticket is spilling over into local races.

Excitement and enthusiasm for Harris are “tangible” in Colorado, campaign says

When President Joe Biden dropped out of the election and was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats across the country felt the shift, and Colorado was no exception.

Since Harris entered the race in late July, her campaign reports that over 11,500 new volunteers in Colorado have signed up to join her effort, a 100-fold increase compared to earlier in the summer.

“The excitement and the enthusiasm are just tangible,” said Serena Woods, a senior advisor for the Colorado Harris Campaign. “There’s been a dramatic increase in people willing to say that they want to join the campaign and volunteer to help Kamala Harris become our next president.”

Woods noted that the new wave of volunteers spans a broad spectrum, from first-time voters to party loyalists who appear every election.

Despite polls projecting a win for Harris in Colorado, Woods emphasized that the campaign is taking nothing for granted and treating every state race as if it could go either way.

“Here in Colorado, we’re gonna do the work so that we can win, and we’re going to take the same mindset as we do with close races across the country,” she said. “Nationally, the campaign is designed to be able to win a close race. Seeing such tremendous enthusiasm that we’re going to turn into action through volunteer signups and volunteer turnout is going to make the difference.”

Woods pointed out that a recent Zoom call featuring prominent Colorado Democrats, including Gov. Jared Polis, drew 500 attendees despite invites being sent out only 24 hours in advance.

“It was very exciting and super fun,” Woods said of the meeting, which was labeled a virtual grassroots organizing call.

“The excitement on the call was super tangible,” she said. “I think it’s unusual to be able to pull something virtual together like that with such a high level of attendance and such short notice. So, I think that’s a good representation of how we were able to pull something pretty big together very quickly, and I think now we’re building systems and continuing to grow our systems to do more and more of that over the coming weeks and months.”

Harris enthusiasm seeps into state, local races

Larimer County Democratic Party Chair Tim Kubik said the excitement from the Harris campaign is spilling over into local and state races, particularly the highly contested race for the 8th Congressional District.

Incumbent Democratic Rep. Yadira Caraveo will face Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans in November. In the newly created district, Caraveo secured her seat by less than one percentage point in the 2022 election.

According to Kubik, the county is about 55% Democratic, along with carrying the advantage of getting a significant number of votes from unaffiliated voters.

He said the county’s shift to a Democratic majority is relatively recent, driven by an influx of residents from left-leaning cities like Denver and Boulder seeking more affordable housing in areas like Loveland.

“Loveland is changing, and south Larimer County is changing,” he said. “We also have some unaffiliated and GOP folks who are changing party registration to work with us as Democrats in order to block (U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert) and support the Harris-Walz ticket. So those are some early indicators that things are going pretty well.”

Boebert, representing the 3rd Congressional District, moved to CD 4, which includes part of Larimer County, last year. Boebert, switching the Republican-leaning district, faces Democrat Trisha Calvarese in the upcoming election.

Kubik said he saw a similar trend occur when he worked for the Barack Obama campaign in 2008, where some Republicans voted Democrat to prevent some GOP candidates Republicans from winning their elections.

However, Kubik argued that this election, unlike 2008, is less about policy and more about the quality of the candidates.

Kubik says the party has seen “a dramatic” increase in volunteers in the county since Biden dropped out, including nearly 50 new precinct organizers.

“We’ve never had that happen in my memory of 15 years to have that many people want to sign up and organize their precinct,” he said. “We haven’t really seen energy like this at the local level for a Presidential campaign since Obama in 2008.”

Trump visit sparks GOP energy

Pitkin County Republican Party Chair Jon Kelly said presidential election years always draw more volunteers, but this year has seen an even greater surge in enthusiasm, partially driven by a recent fundraising event held by Trump in Aspen.

“The Trump fundraiser I think certainly got a lot of attention here, and I think a lot of folks were excited about that,” said Kelly. Both parties are working to earn the endorsement of unaffiliated voters, which make up about half of all registered voters in the county.

While the Trump campaign is running its operations remotely without a dedicated Colorado branch, Kelly said he has seen “a lot of enthusiastic support” for Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction lawyer running in CD 3.

Kelly said he’s unable to determine whether the excitement for Hurd matches the level of support Boebert had in the county before her district switch. Still, he contends that Hurd had made a strong impression on many Republican voters in the area.

“He’s got a great story,” he said. “He’s a local boy from the Western Slope, went to Columbia Law School, worked at one of the top law firms in New York City and came back home and has his law practice out in Grand Junction. Everyone loves a story like that, and he’s a great guy. So, I think everybody who’s met Jeff is very impressed. He’s just a really likable, good guy.”

Cheryl O’Dowd, who heads the Alamosa County GOP, said the attitude towards Hurd differs slightly in her part of the district.

While many local Republicans were disappointed by Boebert’s decision to switch districts, O’Dowd acknowledged that “she needed to do what she needed to do.”

“People loved her down here, and I think the majority still love her,” she said. “As far as supporting Jeff Hurd, he is our nominee, so we’re throwing our support behind him. But if it were him or Lauren running, I think that Lauren would probably win.”

O’Dowd said she “would like to think” that the presidential election will influence local races, but she wasn’t so sure based on her experiences with past elections in the area.

“The last few times, I was sure the races were gonna go a certain way and they didn’t, and I was really kind of floored,” she said. “I was hearing that there’s going to be a red wave, and there wasn’t.”

This time, however, O’Dowd believes that the predicted red wave could be coming.

“People right now don’t believe we’re going in the right direction,” she said. “I think we’re going to see that there’s going to be more voting Republican based on the fact that the Democrats have been in charge for three-and-a-half years, and we are so much worse off than we were four years ago.”

O’Dowd said the party plans to distribute flyers and launch social media campaigns to reach Republican and unaffiliated voters in the county. The county flipped for Trump in 2020 after leaning blue in the previous three elections.

O’Dowd admonished the so-called RINOs — Republicans in Name Only — who are against Trump, noting that she’s encountered a few of them locally.

“It tells me they aren’t truly Republicans,” she said. “They are not truly conservative. If they love this country, they would be voting for Trump.”