(Colorado Newsline) Last month’s shakeup of the 2024 presidential race appears to have fueled a surge in Coloradans registering to vote, according to data released by the secretary of state’s office.

A total of 26,621 people across Colorado’s 64 counties registered as new voters in July, the highest monthly figure the state has recorded since November 2022, when races for governor and a U.S. Senate seat headlined the midterm elections. It’s an unusually high total for the month of July, when new voter registrations in Colorado typically ebb following the June primary.

Driving the overall surge was a sharp increase in the number of new voters registering online, in-person, through the mail or by other means, excluding automatic voter registrations through the Colorado Department of Revenue, which have remained relatively steady throughout the year, according to the data, which was released Aug. 1. Colorado’s automatic registration system, implemented in 2020, enrolls voters when they apply for or renew their driver’s license at the Division of Motor Vehicles, unless they opt out.

The Colorado data follows reports of surging voter registrations across the country following President Joe Biden’s July 21 announcement that he would withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. Vote.org, a nonpartisan voter registration website, said that it signed up more than 100,000 new voters, 84% of whom were under age 35, in the five days following Biden’s exit, as Democrats across the country quickly lined up behind Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket.

Harris’ campaign reported raising an unprecedented $200 million in the six days following Biden’s withdrawal, bringing the campaign’s total haul to over $310 million, two-thirds of which it says came from first-time donors. National polling averages show Harris surging to a nearly 2 point lead in the race against former President Donald Trump, reversing Biden’s disadvantage, though she still trails Trump in several key swing states.

In a series of near-unanimous votes, members of the Colorado Democratic Party and the state’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention endorsed Harris’ candidacy last month, and on Friday party officials announced she had received the support of a majority of DNC delegates in online voting, making her the presumptive Democratic nominee. The DNC is scheduled to begin in Chicago on Aug. 19.

The Harris campaign has hired strategist Serena Woods as a senior adviser to its Colorado team and signed up nearly 6,000 volunteers in the state as of last week, Axios reported.

“Colorado delegates are thrilled to join their colleagues across the country in nominating Vice President Kamala Harris as our nominee for president, a candidate perfectly suited to prosecute the case against Donald Trump and his dangerous Project 2025 agenda,” Shad Murib, chair of the Colorado Democratic Party, said in a statement last week. “We know that Colorado has a friend in Kamala Harris — we’re going to do everything we can to elect her this fall.”

Project 2025 is a sweeping conservative plan from The Heritage Foundation for a second Trump administration.

Camila Navarrette, communications director for youth voter group New Era Colorado, said that while the June primary and a long list of potential 2024 ballot measures may partly explain the registration surge, the presidential shakeup is the “elephant (and donkey) in the room.”

“We heard a lot of apathy, frustration, and hopelessness from young voters around a second Trump and Biden showdown,” Navarrette wrote in an email. “VP Harris’ nomination may be the shift that some young voters need to feel heard and excited about casting their ballot this November.”

But, she said, young people are “issue-motivated voters” who want to see action taken on policies that matter to them, like those outlined in New Era’s “Youth Agenda.”

“A candidate alone isn’t going to motivate young voters to show up,” said Navarrette. “While there may be a sense of new energy, young people will need to see concrete ideas and commitments from our potential elected officials if they want our votes.”

Information about registering to vote can be found on the secretary of state’s Go Vote Colorado website.

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