The 2020 presidential election may still seem far away. But voters who haven’t paid much attention to the Democratic competition to take on President Donald Trump may want to start tuning in. In two short months, the first ballots for president will be cast in Iowa, New Hampshire and … Colorado.

The deadline for presidential candidates of both parties to make Colorado’s March 3 primary ballot is Monday, and because of the state’s mail-voting system, ballots will start going out to all registered voters here Feb. 10. (See who’s filed for the ballot.)

That is the week after the Iowa caucuses — and the day before New Hampshire votes in its primary, putting the Centennial State in play early.

Leading Democratic campaigns already are planting their flags here, preparing to take the race directly to Coloradans. They are led by progressive U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who both have hired state-level staff that are scouting field offices.

On the state’s Democratic ballot, voters could face a lot of choices: 10 Democrats had qualified as of Friday — including U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, the only homegrown contender still standing after former Gov. John Hickenlooper’s candidacy fizzled. Most or all of the five remaining candidates are expected to file by Monday’s deadline.

Of course, by the time Coloradans finish voting in early March, the field likely will narrow significantly as results of the earlier contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina reshape the race. On the Republican side, Trump will be pitted on the Colorado primary ballot against a handful of insurgent party challengers.

This is the first time Colorado is allowing unaffiliated voters to vote in the presidential primary of their choice; they’ll receive ballots for both in the mail. And Colorado’s parties switched back to primaries from in-person caucuses in recent cycles, including 2016. Both changes are expected to widen participation.

Colorado has a role to play

Colorado has a role to play in selecting Democrats’ nominee, political experts and local strategists say.

“I think the reason candidates may want to devote some attention to Colorado is because it’s likely still a competitive general election state,” said Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver. “Some investment prior to the primary could yield benefits for the general election. Getting to know the key players and party leaders and building some kind of ground game infrastructure,” he added, will be important.

As for the other national frontrunners, former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, both moderates, are seen by local Democrats as behind in the ground game, lacking paid staff, though both point to other efforts underway here.

New entrant Mike Bloomberg’s campaign says the self-funded billionaire soon will have a Colorado operation. The rest of the field — including Bennet, whose national campaign headquarters is in Lakewood — is cash-strapped, starving for support and just hoping to hang on past the early contests.

Super Tuesday dynamics

But Colorado’s importance in the second wave of primaries comes with a big caveat: It will compete for the candidates’ attention with 14 other states and territories with “Super Tuesday” contests on March 3.

Those states account for about 40 percent of Democratic delegates, with California and Texas offering big bounties for the surviving candidates.

“It’s hardly the biggest delegate prize of the day,” Masket said of Colorado, “so it gets a little bit overshadowed because of that — particularly by California. And now that (Sen. Kamala) Harris has dropped out, California is more in play.”

With Iowa, New Hampshire — Bennet’s latest focus — and other contests still sucking up most of the contenders’ time, don’t expect to see a cavalry of Democrats storming into Colorado just yet.

Still, after a dry spell that followed a series of spring and summer candidate visits, Sen. Amy Klobuchar is in Denver on Sunday and Bloomberg visited Aurora last week.

The billionaire former New York City mayor has also bought just over $1 million worth of airtime on Denver broadcast TV stations for the two weeks that will end Monday, with another $200,000 spent on TV spots in the Colorado Springs-Pueblo market. Those buys, outsized for Colorado politics, are part of a Bloomberg blitz that has reached $57 million across the country since late November, according to Advertising Analytics.

“We’re going to compete aggressively in Colorado,” said Marc Lavorgna, a spokesman for the still-forming Bloomberg campaign. “We think it’s a good state for Mike. Our strategy is a heavy focus on Super Tuesday and other March states. … A state like Colorado will have importance in the general election.”

Little polling in Colorado

Polling has been scarce in Colorado, with the most recent public survey in August showing a three-way race among Sanders, Biden and Warren.

Back among the undecided voters is state Rep. Leslie Herod, a Denver Democrat who was a state co-chair for Harris. Harris’ suspension of her campaign Tuesday has left several campaigns courting Herod’s endorsement.

She sees a fluid race.

“The national polls are wide open — you see movement and change pretty often, so I think Colorado (also) is still deciding where we are in the primary,” Herod said. But she will be watching for candidates to address the concerns of Colorado, she said, and hire Coloradans to staff robust state campaign operations.

Warren’s campaign says it will announce several Colorado office openings this month. To prepare, it has hired a state director, PaaWee Rivera, a longtime operative for Warren, and says it has more than a dozen staffers and organizers working here now.

Sanders’ campaign was the first to tap a Colorado campaign director, with former state party director Pilar Chapa starting last May. It just hired a state field director, but Chapa underlined the importance of volunteers.

“We’re now doing door-to-door canvassing,” Chapa said in an interview. “We have a pretty secure and built-up volunteer infrastructure — it never stopped from 2016,” when Sanders won the Colorado caucus. She says the campaign counts 4,000 “active volunteers” in Colorado.

Absent paid staff, Buttigieg’s campaign touted its volunteer recruitment efforts in Colorado. Biden’s campaign has rolled out waves of endorsements and says it’s still making plans for a state operation. Adam Dunstone, Biden’s western and Midwest political director, is an old Colorado hand based in Evergreen.

Colorado Democrats see the state as favored for their eventual nominee over Trump in November. But a longtime political operative based in Denver says the participation of unaffiliated voters is a good reason for the top-tier candidates to take the state’s primary seriously.

“If they can resonate with our unaffiliated voters,” Sheena Kadi said, “they will be able to resonate with unaffiliated voters across the country” in the fall.

Candidates for Colorado’s primaries

Updated at 3:10 p.m. Dec. 9

Democratic candidates who had filed for Colorado’s presidential primary as of Monday: former Vice President Joe Biden; U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren; former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg; former HUD Secretary Julian Castro; former U.S. Rep. John Delaney; U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard; former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick; billionaire activist Tom Steyer; author Marianne Williamson; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.

Republicans who had filed: President Donald Trump, former U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, along with lesser-known candidates Robert Ardini, Rocky De La Fuente, Zoltan G. Istvan and Matthew John Matern,.