WASHINGTON — Environmentalists in Colorado may have lost a rallying cry this year when efforts to limit fracking didn’t make the ballot, but that hasn’t stopped eco-activists from painting a big, green bull’s-eye on the state.
Several national groups already have begun campaigning in Colorado in preparation for Election Day, and the Environmental Defense Fund on Tuesday vowed to make the state the centerpiece of a broad effort to highlight the issue of climate change.
The overall aim is to energize young and environmentally conscious voters — although questions remain on whether the latest initiative, along with other pro-environmental efforts in the state, can reverse a long-standing trend of low turnout in midterm election years.
“It’s certainly the biggest thing we’re doing nationally,” Environmental Defense Fund spokesman Keith Gaby said of the group’s planned $2 million campaign in Colorado to get 100,000 voters to the polls.
Expected to work a similar beat will be staffers and volunteers for NextGen Climate, an advocacy group founded by investor and environmentalist Tom Steyer.
A consultant to NextGen Climate said the organization is planning a multimillion-dollar effort in Colorado this year that will focus on the highly competitive U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Mark Udall and Republican challenger Cory Gardner.
“We are ramping up now,” said Craig Hughes, a consultant for NextGen Climate in Colorado.
The group backs Udall, and its support is expected to include a range of activities, from TV ads to door-to-door canvassing.
“The real push will be later toward September and … a big October,” Hughes said.
Also backing Udall in his Senate race is the League of Conservation Voters. Group officials are marshaling a large get-out-the-vote drive that they said could tip the scales.
“We are going to be putting forth a major effort this fall to ensure that young people, married and single women and Hispanic voters turn out and vote for pro-environment candidates,” said Daniel J. Weiss of the League of Conservation Voters.
Still, one elections analyst said the “burden of proof” was on environmentalists to show that they can motivate a voter population that historically has failed to materialize on Election Day in nonpresidential years.
“You have to start from the position of skepticism,” said Nathan Gonzales of The Rothenberg Political Report, a nonpartisan group that handicaps elections.
But he said groups such as NextGen Climate are pouring “serious money” into the race and that the size of the funding effort could make the difference.
“If it’s directed the right way, there’s the potential to have an impact,” said Gonzales, who added that the largest limiting factor for eco-activists is that “the environment doesn’t rank highly on the list of top issues that voters care about.”
National polls often show climate change or the environment as rating in single-digit percentages as the most important issue for voters, although eco-activists said there’s cause for optimism in other surveys.
A poll taken in June 2013 of 800 Coloradans found that 73 percent of those surveyed considered the issue of global warming “very or somewhat important to them personally.”
Seventy percent believe global warming is occurring and 48 percent believe it is mostly human-caused,
according to the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication.
While much of the attention this year in Colorado will be focused this year on the Senate race, Gaby of the Environmental Defense Fund said his group’s real aim will be turning climate change into a perennial election issue.
“We’re trying to prove to both parties that this issue can motivate young voters and it’s worth competing over,” Gaby said. “Our end goal is to get them to compete on climate.”
Mark K. Matthews: 202-662-8907, mmatthews@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/mkmatthews
