Election Day is three months away and the number of Minnesota residents registered to vote is increasing. According to Secretary of State Steve Simon, President Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race affected potential voters.

“We did see a noticeable uptick, a noticeable spike, in that week or so after President Biden decided not to run for re-election,” said Simon.

Data from his office shows that 5,356 new voters registered during the week of July 22 to 28, an increase from the 1,483 who registered the week before.

“For this point in the calendar, for late July, it’s a pretty big number,” said Simon, who explained they typically see an increase following a scheduled outreach event. “Just reacting to political events or something on the election calendar is more unusual  so the movement here is probably more important than the actual number, the percentage increase – which is big.”

The week of July 8, 971 Minnesotans registered to vote, the week of July 1, 1,130 Minnesotans registered to vote, and the week of June 24, 2,447 Minnesotans registered to vote, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Minnesota voters don’t register for a party, so it’s impossible to know which party they are affiliated with.

DFL State Representative Emma Greenman believes Vice President Kamala Harris’s joining the race in late July is one factor in the boost.

“The enthusiasm that I am seeing in the field when I’m knocking on doors for Kamala and for this new energy coming into the last 100 days of this race,” she explained. “I think that having a strong enthusiastic and qualified top of the ticket, as we’ve seen in presidential elections past, is really, really important to giving folks that onramp to getting registered.”

Greenman also believes the increase reflects the effort the party has put into encouraging voter registration.

“It’s really exciting here on the ground in Minnesota,” she said.

The Minnesota Republican Party, meanwhile, has also emphasized voter registration over the last year.         

“I think the dynamic of the race has not change appreciatively, the personalities have, but I think our people are very enthused about changing the direction of our country,” said Chairman David Hann. “We looked at the voter results two years ago and saw a lot of people we believe are Republican voters for a variety of reasons decided not to vote in 2022.”

He added, “We’ve been putting a lot of focus on that and we think we’re going to have a much stronger turnout.”